The Power of the $....

Siem Reap, Cambodia

July 7, 2007
N 13°24.747
E 103°51.822

The media has built up the anticipation of 07/07/07, a day of luck, in a similar fashion to the millennium. For us the day meant a new country, a day of change, and most importantly it meant the escape from Saigon after a few days walking through the dirty, rain drenched streets.

For others, like my cousin Michelle, it means a new life as she ties the knot with her longtime boyfriend. We wish her well from our new country, Cambodia. And of course, Tour de France fans are welcoming the start of this year’s tour which happens to fall on the lucky day—maybe it will bring luck to another American cyclist (no dopers, please).

Upon arrival in Siem Reap, we weaved our way through the line for those applying for Visas, filled out our paperwork, paid our $20 fee, and supplied a passport photo. We were then told to wait in another queue as the authorities processed our Visas; basically applying a little sticker in our passports.

Every few minutes, with a stack of passports from all over the world in hand, a stern looking immigration official would attempt to read the names from each passport and hand them back to the respective owners.

When Marc’s name was called it wasn’t by the stern looking head guy, but rather a guy early on in the “process”. “Oh shit,” I thought and followed Marc up to the window. The guy explained to Marc that he didn’t have a full page in his passport to place the Visa. Marc and I each pointed out a few pages that were completely blank; however, we were told that those pages didn’t have the word “visa” on them. After several minutes of pointing, discussions, and stern lectures… we knew where this was headed. Marc finally asked, “Well, what can I do?” The guy flipped through the passport one more time and found a visa from Turkey in 2004. He decided he could place the sticker there if Marc approved and, of course, “contributed” a little extra money to the Cambodian government.

Marc wrote on the back of his Visa application that he approved the Cambodian government to place the Visa on page 16 of his passport. He then had to sign this statement and pay the $10 levied on him for this privilege. We were happy to see a little extra money got the job done. Now we hope Laos has the same "policy" for this type of situation until he can get more pages added to his passport in Bangkok.

07/07/07 was lucky for us after all. It not only saved us from Saigon, it also kept Marc out of airport limbo. Plus, now that we are in a new country with new sites, I am back in travel mode!