The People Smuggling

Leaving Laos

Although it was hard to leave Gilligan’s Island, and especially as travel friends Mark and Jo from Sydney had made a mammoth 2 solid days of bus rides to have the band back together, I think it was time to go. I purchased a bus ticket from Don Det in Southern Laos to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. The cost was $26 and we had all heard stories of getting held up at the border and having to pay money to the Police to get across. This guy who sold me the ticket said “No Problems- Guaranteed.” It was then I started to get worried. I took a boat and as it happens some great Canadians – Lindsey and Owen were with me on the same boat. They told us at this point that we were to say to anyone who looked remotely official that we were only going to the first town over the border and never under any circumstances, show your ticket for the bus. That gave me a lot of confidence. We then got into a minivan to the Lao/Cambodian border. We were stamped out of Lao, put into a second car and proceeded to Cambodia to get Visas. At this point we started to realise that the Police were not happy with our drivers taking us over the border so they called a meeting. They went to a shady tree and had it out and there was alot of yelling and screaming. The problem was that all the money to get us across was going to mainly Lao people who pay some money to Cambodians for the majority of the 13 hr trip. The police want the bulk of it to go to services in Cambodia. Anyway without becoming too political I arrived in Phnom Penh at 9pm after switching minivans another 3 times. Now, I’m all for a good tour but I had basically being part of a people smuggling service across the border. It has the word dodgy written all over this one.