A Weekend of Firsts

I paid my first bribe this weekend. That came last though. Beforehand I visited my first Communist country, met my first razor artist, and saw my first traffic fatality in Asia.

I’ve had some visa troubles here. When I arrived at the airport I purchased a Business visa for $25USD. I was issued a default E class business visa. For some strange reason, the government has recently decided that these are not extendible. I needed to cross an international border and re-enter the country to correct things. Mr Lang, the Administration Manager at IDE contacted the government for me and received a formal certificate, stating that I was employed in Cambodia and should be granted a B class visa. I was to present this at the border.

Saturday morning I took the bus to Ho Chi Minh city. Alicia, a good friend of some good friends of mine, happened to be in Vietnam on a conference from her job teaching English in Hong Kong. We’d agreed to meet that night for dinner. In the meantime, she’d booked me a room at the hotel where she was staying.

Fields of Dust on the Cambodian Side of the Border

Just crossing the border, one notices an immediate change. Vietnam is hardly the most developed of nations but while on the Cambodia side of the border, a drought held sway and fields lay cracked open by the heat, in Vietnam greenery lined by electric poles stretched into the distance and every house seemed to have a massive TV antenna. I arrived in Saigon and checked in to my room, a cozy little number with dozens of English satellite TV channels, including HBO, air conditioning, and even hot water! I collapsed, slept, and decided to go for a walk.

Television and Fields of Green on the Vietnamese Side

Saigon is not what you’d expect from a Communist country. From every side, neon signs for products ranging from LG appliances to Coca-Cola assaulted me. The latest Brittany Spears song blasted from a large screen TV in front of a department store. I left the main strip to walk along the riverbank in search of some peace of mind. Unfortunately, the shores of the river were being used as a garbage dump. There were several children there flying a big kite. I took out my camera to take a photo.

Children here always seem delighted to have their photo taken. Several offered to take pictures of me with the kite. My gut told me something was amiss. I moved to exit the dump and continue my walk. On my way out, one of the children made what seemed a playful grab at my camera. I dodged aside, laughing with him. In his hand he held a razor blade with which he was trying to slice the camera’s strap away from my wrist. Perhaps not so funny.

I wandered the streets, the markets, and the memorials near the backpackers strip before returning to the hotel to meet with Alicia. After some introductions and conversation, we went in search of a vegetarian restaurant. Along the way we passed a crowd, gathered by the side of the road. Hundreds of people had stopped to stare at a body covered with a white sheet. From my brief experience here, Saigon drivers are a lot like Phnom Penh drivers when it comes to ignoring basic traffic laws. Unfortunately, they seem to lack the courtesy and/or the ability to look where they’re going of their Cambodian counterparts. It was a sad sight. Alicia told me that there are an average of twenty traffic casualties in Ho Chi Minh city every day. I responded that the leading cause of death amongst Peace Corps volunteers is traffic accidents. It makes one wonder about just how much a seatbelt or a good bike helmet is worth.

Alicia and I at the Hotel

The restaurant was superb. The conversation was great. Alicia and I traded stories using our digital cameras. The next day I returned to the border where I presented my certificate and passport to the visa-issuing officer. He stamped the form and gestured for me to pay him. I dutifully handed over the $25USD fee. He returned twenty dollars to me, handed me my passport, and put the remaining five into a small pouch in front of him. “For drinks,” he said with a big Khmer grin.

I looked at my new visa. In the price field the word 'Gratis' was stamped. Apparently Mr. Lang had already paid the processing fee on my behalf. For my part, I had just made my first contribution to Cambodia’s corruption machine.