How My Family Got Stuck in Siem Reap

I had just finished wiping the dust off my feet in the Siem Reap Airport when all hell broke loose. There, at the Vietnam Airlines counter I was issued a boarding pass at five minutes earlier, stood Claire, my parents and four close relatives, all clustered around a ticket agent and speaking at once. Voices had anger in them. Faces concern.

"They're not letting your family on the plane," Claire said when she heard me approach. My flip flops, which had gone over and around the temples of Angkor all day, were now squeaky clean. "We've got to get on the Internet and figure this out right away!"

In December, Claire and I tried to go to Australia for Christmas. On our first attempt, we failed -- we hadn't obtained visas. We drowned our sorrows in Tiger Beer and tandoori chicken at Ashoka on Le Thanh Ton Street, went home, got online, discovered all we needed was "Electronic Travel Authority" clearance ($20/person, payable via the web, good for one year, active immediately) and problem solved. We were on a Thai Airways flight to Sydney, only 24 hours later than originally scheduled. Fair dinkum.

Cambodia is different. Especially when you're trying to go to Vietnam ... and you're not from Vietnam ... and you've got the wrong visa for Vietnam. No website in the world can help with that.

But travel agents can. If one of their employees has a good motorbike.

Let me explain. First thing the next morning, I called my buddy George, general manager of one of the biggest tour operating companies in this part of the world. Within an hour, he had someone at a Vietnamese official's office in Saigon, waiting for a signature from the only person authorized to approve the re-entry of six foreigners with single-entry visas. By 2 o'clock, the paperwork was good to go. It just needed to be faxed over to the ticket counter at Siem Reap Airport, and it was.

Only one problem: That ticket counter's fax machine had run out of paper. Seriously.

My uncle Christopher calls me from the ticket counter. I call George in Saigon. George calls dude in Siem Reap. Dude prints out the documents, then hops on his motorbike, weaves his way through rush-hour traffic on congested National Road, and 15 minutes later my family is passing through security, destination Ho Chi Minh City.

Just another day in third-world Asia. Claire's gotten used to it. Here she is kickin' it with a bunch of cyclo riders:

Comments

Miranda at Marz Haus said…
Whew, that was close. Love the pic of Claire & friends.
March 5, 2008 at 8:05 AM
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