Border Crossings: Vietnam-Cambodia

Borders are a strange invention.

The landscape across a border, from one side to the other, does not change, nor do the people. Trees and streets and fields stay the same. Ethnic groups mix for kilometers on both sides. To the naked eye, difference does not exist.

By crossing a border, however, travellers are technically in a different place, with a different official language, different institutions and laws. Everything formal says that they are no longer in the country they once were.

This oddity - technical, but no tangible difference - demonstrates the relationship between the line drawn on a map and the people and places that exist on either side of it. It is the marvelous contradiction of a border.

The contradiction has always made me delight in borders, and crossing them, and I took great pleasure in entering Cambodia on a speedboat up the Mekong River.

The day started early. I was up and out of my room by 6am to board the boat for a 7am departure.

A throng occupied the dock in early morning sunshine - passengers ensuring the sanctity of their luggage, hotel staff clattering the bags this way and that and chattering at each other in their native language. Many boats from different travel agencies would all make the same journey.

Once bags and people had settled, our driver pushed off from the dock, ran us past the other still moored boats. He folded himself in behind the steering wheel and kicked the engine into high gear. The stocky, round-headed man who served as our guide went over our day's agenda. One hour to the border and five overall, including the time to satisfy immigration officials and their stamps.

We started close to the muddy, reedy riverbank, saw river people go about their day. A old woman poked her head out of a small shack, haphazardly perched on the water, to see about all the engine noise. Fishermen worked in their low-lying boats, untangling nets.

At the first border post, the Vietnamese made our exit official. Thump! You have exited Vietnam at this place at this time. Have a good day. Next. Red ink dried on the pages of my passport.

Our progress was not that simple or quick, however. Money-changers, the last of the Vietnamese vendors, lay in wait for us as we arrived at the dock. These little girls jumped aboard, crowded down the two-foot wide aisle and waved huge stacks of American currency under our noses. "Change money?"

There was conflict among the passengers: did the girls offer a good deal or not?

"I don't know the rate," complained one Auzzie as he handed over his dong.

"Don't do it," nagged his wife from the front seat. "Don't do it!"

We worked out that their rate was extortionate. "Give me back my dong!"

The girls tried for the sale a little longer, then gave up. There were other boats just behind us.

With Vietnamese exit stamps now in hand, we moved down the river to meet the Cambodian border guards. We had left one country but had not officially entered the other. For ten minutes, we were travellers without a current location, on a boat somewhere in between Vietnam and Cambodia.

We hit a new dock and our guide sprang into action. He leaped onto dry land and sprinted to hand our passports to the authorities. We strolled up the path to wait; no vendors impeded us. The other boats had also arrived, though, and guides flitted back and forth to arrange the travel visas. The one who could get through that step the quickest would also get entry stamps for his passengers first and avoid any long wait at the border. The race was on.

Fortunately, I had arranged my visa at the consulate in Saigon and got to go first. The officer filled out an entry card for me, stapled it into my passport and stamped everything four times - one stamp for the place of entry, one for my latest exit date in my passport and repeat for the entry card. I was in Cambodia.

Meanwhile, our man seemed to be winning the battle of the guides. He handed out passports to his remaining passengers and they queued to get their stamps. They all got through in minutes. We walked back down the path while the passengers from other boats began to line up, stretching on forever.

"Some people wait one, two hours at the border," said our guide. I was glad of my seat and the wind beating across my forehead.

It was another three hours to Phnom Penh and the crack-of-dawn wake up call began to catch up with everyone. The tour group that had been so boisterous and full of jokes at the beginning went quiet. One or two dozed in their seats. The man next to me read a magazine article about the Australian Prime Minister.

I looked out the window. Narrow strips of green spread out on either side of the river. Trees towered over the banks. Cows grazed.

Temples and office blocks, those markers of antiquity and progress in the same spot, soon faded into view on the banks ahead of us. We cut through the water for half hour more and landed. As the passengers disembarked in the Cambodian capital, I heard a familiar question.

"You need tuk-tuk? Moto?"

"No man, I'm gonna walk. But thanks."

"You gonna put tuk-tuk drivers out of work."

It might be a different country with a different language and different laws, but a border can't change everything.