Michael Batson

I’ve traveled the road between Koh Kong and Phnom Penh several times over the years in both directions starting in 2006. The first time was from the Thai border to Phnom Penh in a Cambodian taxi the durability of which was testament to Toyota’s engineering skills. Last month I made that journey again in the opposite direction starting in Cambodia’s capital. The interesting factor was that in all that time the condition of that road has come full circle. Last month from the turn-off on the new road to Sihanoukville along route 48 the road was broken, pot-holed, rutted, dusty, and in some places barely a road at all. For those in the coaster bus who thought a road could be no worse than being shaken, deafened, rattled, bounced and bogged, it can. Because it was even worse than that 18-years earlier on my ever first trip. This is the story of that first ever trip.

My first trip to Koh Kong was in 2006. After spending two months touring Southeast Asia from Thailand to Laos to Cambodia to Vietnam, I’d flown back to Thailand from Hanoi and made my way to Ko Samed (or Samet) a Thai island about four hours dive from Bangkok thinking what to do next. I decided to return to Cambodia and set up base there. Rather than fly, someone on the island mentioned getting a taxi to the border with Cambodia. I hadn’t considered this but it’s what the expats living in Thailand do regularly to renew their visas to stay in Thailand, cross over the border of a neighbouring country for a day and come back with a new stamp.

So instead of going back to Bangkok to get a flight to Phnom Penh, I decided to take a taxi from Ban Phe (the jumping off point to Ko Samed on the mainland) to the Cambodian border, but unlike the standard visa run, I wouldn’t be making the return journey. After a breakfast of black tea and dry toast (there wasn’t much else available at that hour I fancied) I waded out to the waiting ferry and off to the mainland. It was too early for most so I had the boat pretty much to myself. Getting a taxi was easy. If you stood still long enough one of the drivers would approach you. It was a three-hour trip on a good road, dual carriageway most of the way. We stopped to fill up at a petrol station and my driver asked for half the money up front so he could pay for the gas. The price per litre of petrol in Thailand at that time was just under 30 THB, less than USD1. For most of the way we sped along at near enough to 100kph.

Outside Chanthaburi the traffic police waved us down. The police officer with motorcycle boots, side arm, sunglasses and face mask, similar to surgical masks and worn largely to keep the sun off and dirt out, asked for a fine of 100 THB, which he quickly pocketed with his white-gloved hand, no receipt.Once you get beyond Trat, military check points are common. The closer you get to Cambodia, the more frequent they become, the larger the Thai soldiers and the darker their uniforms. Before Hat Lek, they are the tallest Thais I’ve seen and their uniforms jet black, with bright yellow and red shoulder patches and are heavily armed. As it turned out my driver had never been to the border crossing before. Mistakenly he turned into the town itself, a grimy fishing port of no particular distinction. The actual border is a few kilometers down the road. A row of shops and a car park mark the dividing line between the two countries. Once I paid the driver off and I was out of the vehicle, I was immediately surrounded by young men offering assistance with everything from directions to carrying my bags.

I asked where I could obtain a visa for Cambodia. The consensus of opinion offered was at the police station across the border. The Thais stamped my passport, sliding the darkened window of the passport office firmly shut again, as they retreated to the comfort of the air-conditioning. I was at the mercy of the youths who surrounded me. They were all Cambodian, and had waited all day in the hot sun for a foreigner to venture their way. As it was the slow season and this border crossing well off the main tourist path, it must be a long time between drinks, so when a foreigner did show up, they were determined to make the most of it. Apparently I was the only game in town, and it was all on.

Inside the immigration office, the Cambodian police officer dressed in uniform trousers and bright white t-shirt scrutinized my passport. Another, the commander, placed a small security box on his desk where they kept all the visas and the money. The other, in the t-shirt, charged me for my business visa, selecting my change from a wad of notes in his security box. Inside the office the paint job, whenever it was completed had faded, the tropical heat taking its toll. A single bench seat occupied one wall and I wondered how many souls had sat their awaiting one fate or another.

Once completed and with my visa it was back outside with my immigration form, which was filled in by the fastest youth from among the throng. These activities annoy me as I’m perfectly capable of performing such tasks myself, as is everybody else. However, in a country of much under-employment such earnings, especially those gathered from tourists, who invariably are charged more, are good money for the locals who have few other legitimate options for income. I remained calm and laughed, especially because I could see the officers inside watching me closely seemingly assessing my reaction. I’m not sure, but I think the one in the t-shirt wore the slightest grin.

The next door window was the immigration office, which then stamped my visa and I was officially back in the Kingdom of Cambodia. “You want taxi, taxi here,” one of the youths pointed to a row of cars across the street. Though these vehicles were in plain view they wanted paying for this information. They wanted to carry my bags and payment for that also. The one who opened the boot wanted a tip, and also for his brother, who hadn’t done anything other than walk across the street with everyone else. As a tourist you seemingly are nothing more than a walking ATM with bottomless pockets and expected to be generous with it. The drive to nearby Koh Kong was going to cost me 300 THB, a complete rip-off as I was also expected to pay for the road toll. I had asked the t-shirted officer the best way to Phnom Penh and he said by boat or bus, but that it was too late today to make the trip and it would be best for me to stay in the city of Koh Kong that night. The city is reached across a long bridge spanning an inlet and “city” is a rather grandiose term for a grimy small provincial centre of little charm.

Once across the border the change in scenery and infrastructure is marked. The roads are poor, the buildings more rundown, there is more rubbish lying around, less vehicles on the roads and generally they are in worse condition than those in Thailand. My taxi from the border to Koh Kong City was driven by a young Cambodian. His brother sat in the back, still learning to drive I was told, though this may have just been for security reasons. Relations with Thailand were not good they explained. The Thais take Cambodian land, building houses illegally and regard Cambodia as the poor relation – this I had heard before.

Petrol was expensive in Cambodia, which explained the price of my fare they said. The price of petrol in the kingdom was twice that of Thailand. Thailand they said sold petrol to Cambodia at inflated prices in a “take it or leave it” arrangement. As a relatively small market, there aren’t many cars in Cambodia as most people who own a vehicle run a small motorbike, there wasn’t much money to be made out of Cambodia, so the Thais didn’t care if they bought petrol or not. The brothers drove me to a money changer, who offered 3200 Cambodian riel for one US dollar, a pathetic rate and well below the official rate of 4000. I was told I would need Cambodian money for the ferry crossings. I said not at that rate and would wait and see. They took me to the bus station, a corrugated iron roof in the middle of a field of rubbish-strewn bare earth, muddy after the day’s rain storm.

Several Camry taxis were parked at the bus station with their drivers. Cambodia having had a love affair with Toyota Camry ever since the fall of the Khmer Rouge when Japan donated 300 of these vehicles to the war-torn country. There were a couple of minibuses, Mazda or Toyota vans waiting too, in pitiful condition like Cambodia is the country these vehicles go to die. If I wasn’t staying in town that night, and to be honest it didn’t appeal, these were my options to Phnom Penh. A Cambodian youth who spoke good English told me one of the taxis was ready to go but needed “a couple more passengers” this seemingly being Cambodian for about a dozen. I would have to wait until they materialized, apparently out of thin air. The youth spoke English very quickly with an American twang. I asked where he learned to speak English and he replied “hanging around here talking to people and smoking dope.”

For an extra fee I could have the front seat, usually reserved for two or even three Cambodians, and if I was willing to pay even more the taxi could leave straight away without waiting for any other passengers, so I’d be paying the fares for almost an entire carload, which here could mean about a dozen or so people. Every decision was pressure, no one gave you the time to think. The offer was extremely tempting but I knew they were charging the earth. For this information the fast talking youth wanted a tip. I surmised then that he was stoned. For helping me get ripped off and for smoking dope I said I didn’t think so – he looked offended.

After the usual haggling and with my bags already in the boot it was a done deal and I knew I had been – done; but then, what price convenience and I smugly felt as though I’d had the last laugh, so doubtless did they. So everyone was satisfied and if all else failed I’d ensured that my co-passengers had a comfortable journey, well, as it turned out, as comfortable as conditions would allow. That’s the thing, you know they are ripping you off, they know they are ripping you off and they know, you know, so everyone sees this commercial conundrum for what it is, and carries on. I looked at my watch it was getting late and the journey to Phnom Penh over a bad road would take six hours I was told. It wound up taking seven-and-a-half.

I’d left Koh Samed on the eight-thirty boat and got to Phnom Penh shortly before ten o’clock that same night. Aside from the driver and myself, a couple with their two young children occupied the back seat in comparative comfort, thanks to the big spending foreigner. At every stop their daughter would lean between the front seats to practise her school English on me with a beautiful smile. We headed out of town on a smooth dirt road. It wasn’t long, however, before we were crawling along, the road deeply rutted, the driver steering from one side of the road to the other in order to try and find the best route. This tactic merely served to bounce us from one pothole to another, a course which reminded me of the hellish drive from Poipet to Siem Reap in the country’s north. Our journey would take us over three river crossings I was told, actually there were four, and across the Cardamom Range in south west Cambodia, a natural wonderland.

The Cardamom Mountains, named after the spice and known locally as Kravanh and the Elephant Range extends across the border into southeastern Thailand. It is separated from the nearest other rain forest by the vast, dry Khorat Plateau in central Thailand to the north and east and by the Gulf of Thailand in the west. Densely covered with lush virgin rainforest and rising to its highest point at 1813m, the Cardamoms extend over an area of 17,100 square kilometers or 4,420,000 hectares covering a large portion of south-western Cambodia. The Cardamoms are considered to represent Southeast Asia’s greatest natural resources in terms of virgin forest and wildlife habitats that have never been fully explored and or catalogued. Eco system conservation projects have identified 30 large mammal species, 30 small mammal species, more than 450 birds, 64 reptiles, 30 amphibians, and many other plants and insects.

Animals indigenous to this area include elephants, tigers, clouded leopards and a variety of other mammals such as the Malaysian sun bear, pleated gibbons, and reptiles like the Siamese crocodiles all of which are high on the endangered species list and the only significant population thought to exist anywhere. Several are now under threat from illegal logging operations and from adjacent concessions that encroach on the unprotected protected areas. The wildlife trade has also resulted in widespread hunting throughout Cambodia and Thailand, exacting a heavy toll from endangered wildlife populations. Antipersonnel landmines are widespread and pose a severe threat to both wildlife and humans (including researchers), so it pays to stay on the road.

We briefly hit another smooth patch of road but I’d no sooner thought thank goodness for that and we were back to a crawl. The driver asked if I liked the good road and laughed. Cambodians possess a good sense of humour and I often hear a one-liner delivered, as always, with a big smile. He had three children he told me and lived in Phnom Penh. If he drives down here every two days his car must take a hammering I thought. The “road” was still being built across the range. Earth moving machinery sat idle at every pass. Occasionally some were in use, but you could see progress on finishing the route would be slow. I would describe our journey as taking place much on a track cut through the forest for logging trucks after heavy rain. But this was the main highway here in western Cambodia from Thailand.

Several times we stopped completely, either to let another vehicle pass, as the path was too narrow, or to remove boulders from the track least they puncture the bottom of the car. Grossly over loaded dump trucks crawled up and down the hill sections. After about an hour we reached the first river. Our final approach was through mud so deep it threatened to sink our vehicle. Mini buses returning from Phnom Penh required all passengers to walk to lighten the load, while the driver took a run up through the mud pools hoping the momentum would propel the van out the other side. There were no bridges, they hadn’t been built yet, so river crossing was on water. The ferry looked like it had been built in someone’s back yard, which it probably had. It could take about five vehicles at a time. Half way across the river the engine cut out and we began drifting down river slowly rotating allowing a full vista of the stunning scenery. The dense jungle with beautiful palms reflecting a brilliant green in the bright sunshine stopped at the water’s edge. The resident policeman on the craft and the operator struggled to restart the engine. After what seemed like about ten minutes the engine spluttered back into life and we made our way slowly back upstream. The days of the ferries are numbered as bridges, built with foreign aid, are now being constructed at each of the crossings. Their steel-reinforced concrete spans are poured on the river banks and then transported by specially constructed rail lines over the upright spans and into place.

Two NGO vehicles, one sponsored by Care International and the other, a Land Rover paid for by a French organization and heavily loaded with what appeared to be office furniture, overtook us on the road. At the next river crossing we caught them up while everyone waited for the ferry to load up with vehicles on the other side, a pattern repeated at all the following crossing. Roadside stalls were set up at each point selling water and biscuits, fruit and beer. I had little Cambodian money, the taxi driver had been right. Since leaving the island, several hours before I had eaten a piece of toast and drunk tea, and a small bottle of water. I had enough Cambodian riel for another bottle of water, figuring this was more important than food. One of the Cambodian NGO staff motioned to some mints, which the woman on the stall threw in for no extra cost, mind you it was expensive water.

After about five hours we hit the sealed road just beyond Sre Ambel, where National Route Four from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville joins the Koh Kong Road. By this time it was dark and the road was full of slow moving trucks hogging the road in both directions. Cambodian trucks carry no tail lights. The only way you can see them is by the silhouette of their headlights. Under the rear trailer, some have a rear facing purple or white light, and a taxi bears down on them unnervingly quickly given they are barely capable of 20kph on hill sections. Locals ride their motorbikes and bicycles along the roadside with no lights at all. The lights on the taxi were poor, a situation little improved when, at a roadside stall, the driver poured bottled water over them, at the rate I was paying him he could afford to, in an effort to clean five hours of Cardamom mud off them. They were just crap lights.

By nine o’clock that night I was relieved to see the lights of the capital ahead. We passed huge garment factories on the city’s outskirts. Cambodia’s garment industry manufactures items for some 300 mainly foreign-owned companies, keen to exploit the low wages and poor working conditions offered to workers. In a recent incident at one factory, dozens of workers fainted due to poor ventilation. Doctors treating the collapsed workers described their plight as “coincidence” which apparently having nothing to do with a lack of extractor fans at the plant. Still, a garment worker makes more money than a police officer in Cambodia. Once in town the children in the back of the taxi, one of whom had been car sick, sat awestruck by the numbers of people and vehicles, a far cry from the quiet town of Koh Kong.

If I thought about it, I could work out how much that trip cost in Thai baht, dollars, and in riel. But that trip was a fantastic insight into life in Cambodia at a time when it was all new to me, and the country was busy rebuilding after nearly three decades of conflict. I might have paid over the odds for everything but it didn’t matter. Like the Mastercard moment, that trip in many ways, was priceless.