I now backtrack to Day 73 when we arrived in Laos, across the border with Cambodia.
The North of Cambodia is really quite uninhabited, and as we
approached the border crossing we realised we hadn’t passed any other vehicles
for some time. There wasn’t even the usual smattering of huts and platforms on
stilts throughout the fields, and we saw more “don’t walk here, you might get
blown up by a landmine” signs than we saw in the whole of the rest of Cambodia.
We stopped a few kilometres short of the crossing to get out
our passports and paperwork and separate our cash. We all kept around $5 in $1
notes in our wallets to be used as “fees” if necessary, careful not to have too
much in case it comes to an “empty your pockets” situation. Then we had $35
each stashed but readily available for our Laotian visa when we got to that
side of the border, and the rest of our cash stashed as safely as possible
inside bags in the boot.
And on to the border. This really was the middle of nowhere
– there was no building higher than a couple of meters, and it was so hot and
still that the few people that were around weren’t doing a whole lot of moving.
The usual group of tuk-tuk drivers, guesthouse spruikers, shop keepers and locals
carting goods across the border were just nowhere to be seen.
There was a handful of cars parked at the side of the road,
but unsure of exactly what the protocol was we drove up to the boom gate, where
we were waved at and told to go back and park with the other cars. There were
of course a couple of ladies under corrugated iron roofs who tried to sell us
cold drinks from their ice chests as we were parking, but we resisted their
offers and walked up to the small wooden hut
at the boom gate. There we were greeted by two policemen, their jackets
strewn to the side in the unforgiving heat, who told us to go to Customs for
our car.
Customs was one of a handful of huts a few meters behind Passport
Control, this one with four walls, but both bare except for a table and chair,
and the officers’ jackets hanging on nails in the corner. As we approached, the
man sitting outside in front of the “Customs” sign quickly got up and went
inside to his desk. He stared at us for a bit, and then asked for our papers,
to which we told him we don’t need any because the car’s a temporary import and
we’re using a Carnet. And then he repeated “your papers?”, and he got the same
response. After repeating the same thing a few times, he seemed to be satisfied
and sent us back to Passport Control. The two original policemen were happy
enough that we’d gone to Customs and so proceeded to stamp our passports out of
Cambodia. The” fee” required for this privilege is $2 per person, and this
certainly isn’t a border where we were inclined to argue with the men with
guns. There was one other civilian there at this time who had a handful of
Vietnamese passports. We assume one of the parked cars was his, but we’re not
sure who all the other cars belonged to, or where all the people were whose
passports he had.
Once our “fees” were paid, the manual boom gate (operated by
a rope at one end) was lifted for us and we entered No Man’s Land once again.
This one was a lot less note worthy than our last experience at Poipet, where
we spent a night in a Casino between the borders. Here we were faced with 100
meters of road, and a handful of Laotian guards playing bocce under a
tarpaulin. Once again we parked at the boom gate, and this time with our $35 on
hand, walked past the boom gate to the caravan parked under a tin roof, proudly
flying the hammer and sickle, that was Laotian Visa and Passport Services.
At Window 1 we were given our arrival/departure cards to
fill in, with one pen between us. A small veranda had been built in front of
the caravan, resulting in the windows being uncomfortably low (even for tiny
me), but if you’re willing to stand doubled up with your head at waist
height, it was possible to get a brief
but terrific blast of the air conditioning from inside. So one at a time we
handed over our filled in cards and passports to Window 1, where we were charged
only $30 for the visa (everything we’d previously referenced said it would be
$35, and we had been prepared for them to ask for more, so this was a pleasant
surprise not to be argued with) and asked to go to Window 2. At Window 2 we
waited while that guy finished reading his magazine so he could wake up the
other guy, who came and returned our passports to us for a “fee” of $2 per
person.
Back to Trevor we went, a weight lifting off our shoulders
as the boom gate was raised for us. Straight ahead there’s a grand gate under
construction, with a wide new road going through it, but in the mean time
there’s a very narrow unsealed track that goes around this future gate. This is
the road we entered Laos on.
Of course we got all excited at this point, what with having
successfully entered another country. But alas, we realised our excitement was
premature when we reached another boom gate a couple of kilometres down the
road. A man waved us over from the side of the road, and we realised the brick
building here was Customs and he wanted to see our Carnet. Laos isn’t even a
country subscribed to the Carnet, but ok. The man at the window flicked
through, obviously confused, as Ben tried to point him to the bit he actually
needed to look at. Then he ran off with our $950 document, and so we ran off
after him, adamant not to let it out of our sight. We realised he’d gone to get
his boss to do the signing, who drove his scooter across the road and met us at
a bunch of plastic chairs and a table under a tarpaulin. This is where the
glorious ceremony of the signing of the Carnet took place. Each country gets
one page in the booklet, which is split vertically into three sections with
perforations in between. The bottom section should be signed and stamped and
kept by Customs for their records on import. The middle section should be done
on export, and the top section stays in our booklet signed and stamped on both
import and export. Much to our frustration though, he jumped in and signed the
wrong side of the top section. Ben spoke up straight away, and this guy
obviously having no idea what the story was, just signed and stamped the other
side as well. Satisfied with this, the boss scootered himself back across the
road to continue hanging out, and we chased the first guy back to his window,
where he retrieved the slip from a previous Carnet as reference of what he was
supposed to do now. He tore off the bottom part of the page (which is actually
correct), and sent us on our way for no fee – a nice surprise. So according to
our document we have already imported and exported the car to Laos, and because
they never signed or stamped their part, they don’t actually have a record of
us ever having our car here.
Once again we set on our way, chastising ourselves for having
gotten prematurely excited about successfully crossing the border. This time
however, it seems we had completed all the required tasks and were able to make
our way onto Don Det in the 4,000 Islands where have now spent the last three
days.
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