Hello, Cambodia!

Yesterday, we left the sleepy little island of Don Det to head to Cambodia - which included the always interesting proposition of land border visa purchasing. At 8am, we dutifully carted our bags to the boat landing beach (which was being occupied by an array of other travelers and a complacent water buffalo) to catch a boat for the mainland. Among the many other travelers was a woman I will only refer to as Crazy. Crazy was a fifty footer in terms of insanity, which means that from fifty feet you could tell you didn't want to share a restaurant with her, much less a crammed longtail boat and then minivan. Crazy had shockingly dyed blond, stringy hair and appeared to be about 50 years old, dressed in cutoff jean shorts (with purple underwear visibly sticking out), a halloween Angkor Wat shirt, and plaid hightop converse, which upon closer inspection included embroidered tazmanian devil cartoons. Kate thinks her black eye liner was tattooed on, which may be the explanation for its prevalence at 8 in the morning. The most salient characteristic of Crazy's crazy (apart from appearance of course) was her 4 large and falling apart rolling suitcases. Who brings one rolling suitcase, let alone 4, to the dirt roads and sand of Don Det?

Now, I don't mean to sound judgemental. Perhaps she is a very nice lady with clothes for starving street children in her bags - appearances can be deceiving. We'll see...

So we load into the boats and head across the water with about 30 other people. On the other side of the Mekong, we depart the boats and wait for the minibuses to the border. As you can imagine, Crazy has a tough time negotiating the trash-strewn beach with her rolling bags, and has to make multiple trips. At one point, she approaches me, grabs my arm, and says hysterically, "I've lost one of my cases!" Oh, jesus, now I'm that girl who crazy has decided to talk to. I mumble something like "Umm...did you check the beach?" and duck away to buy some oranges. All 30 travelers are torn between staring at Crazy and actively avoiding her gaze. Finally we pile into three very tightly packed minivans and head to the border.

We disembark at the border to pay the obligatory leaving fee and have our visas stamped "Used" and then walk about 10 minutes down a dirt road, where we learn we have to go back to the vans and drive to a different border crossing. Confusing, but ok, its Laos, and border crossings are always a laughable combination of incompetence and bureaucracy. Now we all have to pile back into the vans - except there are a different number of vans and more people now and everyone's saying different things. Luggage is moving to and fro and people are generally anxious. Crazy is yelling at the guy standing on top of the van that her suitcases must be put vertically on the roof, saying, "Not that way! Why would you do it that way? Are you listening to me? What don't you understand?" Well, he doesn't speak English, ma'am, particularly your shrill Texas twang (of course this woman is American - an ambassador of hillbilly hospitality). Then there's the group of Russians stomping about, the leader of whom (clad in a man tank and ridiculous sunhat) is also yelling at the driver in heavily accented English, "Quickly, Quickly! We go now! I have plane to catch!" To which the Lao man on top of the van wisely replied, "You hire minibus, you cannot go quickly!" The Italians are calmly smoking in the corner. A Finish girl changed her pants. This could be a long day.

Finally we all get to the land border, where there is one man issuing visas to the 30 or so of us, at a table in a little house. No line forms, but just a teaming mob handing over passports and money. The Cambodian visa master (who had a chunk of hair not less than 5 inches long growing out of a mole on his face) dutifully filled in by hand the visas, using his massively long thumbnail to peel back the sticky backing and stamping each one with 5 different little stamps. The finish people got the wrong change - he took their passports back, banged them on the table, got all mad, and ended up profiting ten bucks with his botched math. The Russians are freaking out and twice commandeer Kate's pen ("Give me pen now!") and everything is hot and ridiculous. One of the Russians has an exchange with Crazy that clearly makes the Russian girl uncomfortable and everyone feels bad. Eventually, Kate and I get our visas and move to the shack where you actually get your entry stamp. We are three people behind crazy, and we are the only other Americans.

Crazy steps up to the counter and insists she needs a working visa. We're all standing around on the platform, and see what's coming. The guy in the booth says, "Ok, one month visa." She insists on a working visa (which, as many people may now, you do not get at the shack on the land border between Laos and Cambodia, where there isn't even electricity) and the guys tell her to get it in Phnom Penh. One of the Finish girls tries to help to explain to her that you can't get it here. She insists she needs a working visa. No, they say. No, we all say, you have to get it in Phnom Pehn. She needs the border guys names and badge numbers and identifying information, she insists, so that she can tell the people in the capital that they wouldn't give her a visa. The man in the booth freaks out. "Closed! Everyone out! No no no! One by One! Out out! One by One!" he shouts. We all shuffle off the platform and stand in a line next to the shack. He still has the passport of the french guy, whose wife is standing on the other side of the shack, ostensibly safely in Cambodia. What will happen? Crazy storms back to the visa master and the guy in the shack fumes. "One by one! One by One! One by One!" he shouts. We are only too happy to comply. Curiously, the one by one rule does not apply to Lao or Cambodian people, who just go up to the side window and shake the guys and hand and banter for a couple of minutes while he happily stamps away.

So things get moving again, the French guy joins his wife, the Finns get through, the Italians in front of me, and then I step up to the booth with a smile and handover my American passport. Just the site of the blue pamphlet enrages the border man. He waves it frantically at me and says no working visa. No, no, I insist, I am but a simple well meaning tourist. I'm not with Crazy! You must believe me! "She's so crazy!" I say, and his compatriot (who as a serious gold grill and appears to be there just to take the money and nod) agrees, saying, "Oh, she crazy." Crazy, we all agree, but that is her and not me and please can I have my lovely American passport back? The border man is fuming. He hates all holders of blue passports now, and takes his time with the pretty little stamp, mumbling about Crazy. Occasionally he yells out "One by one!" And then I am allowed to enter Cambodia, and so is Kate, and we embark once again on the rearranging and packing of the minivans.

Eventually we get into a seat with our bags and head down the road into Cambodia (without Crazy, who may still be at that border arguing for her work visa). The greatest part of the Minivan Shuffle is that, though we are all going to different places in Cambodia, they don't sort that out until we stop for lunch in Stung Treng (great town name) at the driver's friend's restaurant and wait for a while and reshuffle. Finally and eventually we get into a minivan bound for Kratie, while the driver honks at everything that passes with a horn that beeps an elaborate symphany of honks at least 10 seconds long. We arrive at our destination after about 8 hours of travel. Kratie is 250 kilometers from Dot Det. Welcome to Cambodia!