Justice! (well almost)

Day 88: Stung Treng (K) – Don Khon (LAO). By train, by ship, by speedboat and by golf-buggy! Those were the ways that we had transversed our ten border crossings so far. But for Karen and me the one that was missing, the one that we really wanted to do was to walk from country to country.

Arriving in the remote northern Cambodian town of Stung Treng we were inundated with offers to get us effortlessly across the border and into Laos - but this time, as our penultimate border crossing, we wanted to do it our way. Taking breakfast at the excellent Riverside Café, it wasn't long before one of the local Khmer offered us a ride to the border crossing point at Dom Kralor which we gratefully accepted. Travelling the 30 miles from Stung Treng, the remoteness of this part of the world was brought vividly home to us, not seeing a single person for the duration of our journey.

With a notorious reputation for corruption, we had been told that the only way for foreigners to secure safe egress from Cambodia and ingress into Laos at the distant outpost was by paying 'back-handers' to the greedy officials – the going rate: $1 per person per official.

Dropping us us 50 yards from the Cambodian checkpoint, our ride turned around and headed back to Stung Treng, leaving us in the baking sun in the middle-of-nowhere. Slowly, we walked along the centre of the tarmac road until we reached the barrier and the little sentry box, representing the Cambodian border. Sure enough; our hosts requested the usual bribe “For the official stamping out fee”, they said. “OK”, Karen replied very calmly, “Please can we have an official receipt then”. At which point the extremely disgruntled official simply waved us both through without adding to the enormous collection of dollar bills in the large plastic bag in front of him.

“Brilliant!”, I thought, “We've beaten the system. Justice for the people!”. As the guard lifted the barrier we both walked smugly along the 100 yards of no man's land until we reached the officials at the Laos control point. Thinking we were on a roll, I thought I'd try and match Karen's audacity. “Government receipt”, I insisted as he alluded to the $2 'fee'. After a short silence, the elderly official started laughing loudly and then, with a toothless grin said, “This ain't for no government. This is for us...”, he confessed, gesturing towards his colleagues with my passport clutched firmly in his hand, “...to enjoy the New Year celebrations”. You had to hand it to the guy: That level of arrogance, that level of brazen honesty; has got to be worth two dollars of anyone's money!