Visa Run July 2005

My visa got expired, hence I had to go to Cambodia to get a new tourist visa for 30 days. The first impression was really great. You book a seat in a bus which drives to the border of Cambodia, there you pass the border, eat lunch on the Cambodian side, come back to Thailand and you get a new visa :-)

I had to be at Sukhumvit Soi 12 at 5.00am and got on a nice bus...

In the bus, they had some simple and tourist friendly instructions, how the day would look like... Basically the following steps:

1. Departure from Sukhumvit Soi 12, 3.5 hours to the border of Cambodia (Poipet)
2. At the border, all the formalities will be done by our guide... (no line up at the Thai immigration)
3. Cambodian immigration
   
4. Lunch
5. Enter Thailand, get in the bus
6. Back to Bangkok
   

Unfortunately, the day looked a bit different... :-( The prime minister of Thailand replaced the responsible minister and everything got a little messy...

When we arrived at the border, the bus driver told us, that we have to line up at the Thai immigration, since they didn't sort it out yet with the local police who was in charge. I guess they had to renegotiate the deal ;-)

I don't know, how many people lined up at the Thai immigration, but it took us 4 hours to pass it! I have chosen a very bad day, since I went on a Saturday. On the Cambodian side, there are huge casinos and since gambling is forbidden in Thailand, many Thai's go gambling for the weekend in Cambodia... So, never go on the weekend! It's full with gambling addicted people...




One of the first things I recognized, where all these young and very dirty children, who tried to get some money by holding an umbrella above your head - as sun protection. This was really very sad to see and made me think a lot... It looked like they were living on the street and nobody took care of them...

On the Cambodian side you could see, how these people where living...


After 4 hours, we finally could enter Cambodia. The first impressions wasn't much different from Thailand, but I guess this comes from the fact that most people passing this border need either a new visa or just would like to waste there money in gambling...


Just two hundred meters from all these poor families and children, you could see the casinos and there we went for lunch...


This gave me a very bad feeling and I couldn't eat much. Somehow I felt very bad about sitting in front of huge buffet and on the other side, these children where begging for some Baht's standing in the sun all day long...

Before we went back to Thailand, we had to line up again and luckily, this time it took us only 1.5 hours :-) But standing there, a sign came to my attention...


This is no joke! Never ever get in touch with drugs in Thailand or Cambodia, you might have a lot of time to rethink your actions after, or in the worst case you won't have any time at all!