Nomadism 101: A Daytrip to Cambodia pt. 1

Thai law being what it is, a visa issued upon arrival to this fair kingdom is limited to 30 days. If the visa holder in question wishes to supplement said visa, a 15 day extension is available in Bangkok; anything longer must be obtained across the border in Laos, Malaysia, or Cambodia. Mynannmar's right out.
What follows is the tale of my quest to obtain those coveted thirty extra days on my visa.

I wake up this morning expecting to get ready for a quick trip into downtown Bangkok to get a 15 day extension on my visa. It won't be enough, but right now, it's the only thing we have time to do. Expectations are interesting things...my morning continues with my Dad cheerfully popping his head into my room and announcing that I'll be heading to the Cambodian border with a man I'll call Mr. D. A, fellow American. He used to teach here at the college and still lives in the area.

By 8, we're heading to the border. The sun is rising, but the air is thick with haze from all the slash and burning that happens this time of year. But today, this doesn't bug me as much as it usually does, I'm excited; I've always wanted to see Cambodia, even if I'll only get to the border area on this trip. Four towns, fours hours, and a few naps later, we've arrived rather uneventfully at the border. At least in this area of Thailand (and I imagine a good bit of the rest of the country), most people live in towns or small cities. No bamboo villages here. I guess you'd have to travel up to the hill tribe areas to find actual villages, and from what I hear, those are disappearing as well.

But enough of that, I'm at the border. We arrive at the border and spread out around the official buildings is a large market. We drive under a large, pale yellow arch. The large text on the arch proclaims this area to be the "Golden Gate Plaza," and I have to smile a bit.

If you've ever packaged up a box of clothes and American goods to send to Cambodia, and wondered, as you dropped that well-taped box off, what actually happens to the goods, well ask no more. They end up here, in the Border Market. Cambodians, it turns out, don't particularly like hand-me-downs either. They started crossing the border to sell the contents of their packages and buy clothes they liked; and thus the market was born. It now sprawls around border control, and from what I could gather, contains just about anything you'd want to buy.

Mr. D and I park, and head off to border control to get started on obtaining a Cambodia visa for my jaunt across the border. Unfortunately, things have changed since he was last here, and we end up wandering around trying to find the entrance to the crossing. I'd like to note here that as a foreigner especially in Asia, it's a good idea to look like you know what you're doing. Looking lost attracts all the wrong sorts of people.

Rather unsurprisingly then, we're ambushed by two eager looking young men in grey polos sporting a travel company logo. They insist that they can get me over the border and back quickly with minimal hassle, for a small fee. I'm not that excited about the idea, but we are a bit lost, and they do look official, so we let ourselves get herded back to a restaurant where they have set up shop. They ask for my passport, fill out the documentation with a speed that suggests a comforting familiarity and then disappear, reassuring me that they'll be back in about 15 minutes with the visa.

Having your visa disappear in the hands of a stranger, no matter how reputable he looks, is just downright scary. We sit at the restaurant and minutes tick by. I figure that I might as well order some food and ask for a plate of fried vegetables and rice. The waitresses who have been standing around eyeing the customers scurry to work. No one looks very happy in this place. There seems to be an air of resignation that hovers around the wait staff. I look over the counter and watch the cook stir a huge pot of rice.