The Border Crossing

> The guide books will tell you that from Ha Tien, Vietnam to Kampot, Cambodia, is a journey if one hour and forty-five minutes. If only so.
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> First one must have a visa. This can mean either a trip to the border, then forms, then queuing, and so on. Or you can do what everyone really does, find a visa agent in town and have them arrange the visa.
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> It is simple, no? You simply book a bus, give them some money, in this case $ 28 US and then your passport. You hand this tiny Vietnamese girl your passport. Then you go away. The bus leaves in five hours. A stranger will come to pick you up at the guesthouse. You have just given them your passport, the document that allows you to travel the world. You give it to them. You walk away.
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> At 1 PM, more or less, the vomit van picks me up. No passport. It's OK. We ride for five minutes to the travel office. The other travelers, young Euros all, gather at the van. I see the young girl, raise my eyebrows and mouth "passport." She smiles reassuringly. No passport.
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> We eventually careen to the border, about twenty minutes away. And we wait. After waiting we are told to go to the Viet border office. There we wait a bit. Then we are ushered through to the neutral side. Some waiting. Then we get in the van. We drive 100 meters. Some waiting. A new office and, voila! A stack of passports!
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> Reunited (oh Joy!) we drive 100 meters to Cambodian customs. We wait. The driver pays some fee. We drive to the medical examination. It is thorough, consisting of one dollar exchanged for a piece of paper that says I am in perfect health. Good to know. We wait. We drive to a shady spot. We wait.
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> Finally the two foreigners who just made it from the boat docks arrive. Now the vomit van is full. Now we can go. No van moves before it is full.
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> And hours later I am Kampot, a marvel of a crumbling French Colonial Cambodian town set on a river. And everything is different. It is very slow here. Slow. The currency is dollars and the lingua Franca is English. This is so easy.
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> I am settling into a plate of hand thrown noodles after a good smoke on the porch of my decrepit bungalow.
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> Life has drawn down to almost an idle. I believe I will be here for awhile.
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