After a relaxing and enjoyable journey through south Vietnam, Sharon, my traveling friend, suggested crossing over to Cambodia for one night since we were at the border town, Chau Doc. Why not whet our appetite with a glimpse of the famous Phnom Penh City?

However, something about border crossing always makes me cringe with anxiety. From years of traveling experience, the Murphy’s Law does apply in real life.  Of course, I’ve heard of that familiar pitch: “Nothing can be smoother than have things arranged for you by a tour agency.” So, for once I let someone else arranged my border crossings between Vietnam and Cambodia.

The nice manager of our hotel took the liberty of doing all the paperwork for border crossings to and fro between Vietnam and Cambodia. As for visas? No problem, he assured us. We could apply for the Cambodia visas on board the ferry to Phnom Penh and do the same for the Vietnam visas on the bus return to Ho Chi Minh. The manager even prepared an envelope with the exact change in Vietnamese dong for our visa applications and a note to the bus depot management.

We took a long ferry ride along the Mekong River to Cambodia without any problems. After a leisure stroll through the center of one of the most magnificent capital cities of Southeast Asia, Phnom Penh, we promised ourselves that we’d definitely return to Cambodia on our next trip.

To make sure we wouldn’t miss the bus, we were the first ones to arrive at the bus depot on Saturday. The clerk working behind the counter took the envelope and read the hotel manager’s note. He flatly told us that he couldn’t accept Vietnamese dong — only U.S. dollars. His explanation was that if he took the Vietnamese dongs on that day based on the foreign exchange rate, he’d lose US$1. After a bit of reflection on our part, we responded that we’d give him that one US dollar.

Then he flipped through our passport pages and found out that we didn’t have visas for Vietnam. He stood up, handed the passports to us and said, “We cannot allow you to board the bus without a proper visa”. Our response? We stood there in silence — for only a moment. Then words poured forth from both of us, trying to reason with the clerk as we insisted that he called the hotel manager who had arranged the bus ride for us.

While the clerk was talking on the phone with the hotel manager, he kept shaking his head. Finally, he handed me the phone. I braced myself to hear the voice on the other end of the line. The hotel manager cleared his throat and explained: “The bus driver no longer handles the visa applications and you need to get your visas at the Vietnam Embassy. The bad news is that it is closed on the weekend. And the next bus available to Ho Chi Minh will be on Tuesday. The good news is that you’ll stay a few more days and see a lot more of Cambodia.“

Holy smoke! Both of our flights were set for Sunday morning out of Ho Chi Minh back to our home destinations! As I stood still, trying to suppress the emotional rise of a panic state, all the possibilities on what to do next flashed across my mind.

Finally, one of the passengers waiting to get on the same bus took pity on us and told us that the Vietnam Embassy was open on Saturday morning. But, we had only one hour to get there on a tuk-tuk.

As we gathered our things to make our exit, the bus that we never got on was pulling out of the station, leaving us with a sunken feeling. After flagging down a tuk-tuk, we told the driver to go at top speed to the Vietnam Embassy. When we got there, there were still some people in the waiting room.

Fortunately, they have two prices for visa application processing: regular fee for several days and higher fee for one-hour processing for desperate folks like us. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough U.S. dollars to cover the higher cost. Sharon had only Taiwanese NTs and I had only Japanese yens. Taiwanese NTs are not accepted for foreign currency exchange in Cambodia, which means that I had to make a mad dash to the nearest bank on another tuk-tuk.

At a Cambodian bank, the teller took one look at my American passport and then at my Japanese yens. She got the head teller and the manager come to the window, too. They had serious doubts about the money or me. Somehow, I managed to explain to them that I was living in Japan, so naturally I’d have Japanese yens. It took a full 15 minutes to exchange a 10,000-yen bill for US dollars! They didn’t realize that “time was money” in my dire situation.

Still clutching my US dollars, I flew on a tuk-tuk back to the Vietnam Embassy where Sharon was waiting with a desperate look, as the gate was about to close. Amazingly, we did get our Vietnam visas in time.

The next thing we did was to hunt down an Internet café to place an international phone call to the hotel manager in Vietnam. He was greatly relieved to hear that we would be back that evening and need a room for the night. Since I didn’t know how much the phone call was, I placed a handful of Vietnamese dongs in the Internet café owner’s hand. But she only took the correct change and returned the rest.

When we asked the friendly owner where to catch a taxi to the border, she guided us to a street where private cars were parked along a busy route. As soon as we approached, more than 20 taxi drivers swarmed around us like hawks. As they encircled, they started haggling and even fighting among themselves for our business. It got ugly — pushing and shouting. I couldn’t hear a word in the uproar.

So, I raised my hands up in the air, clapped twice and shouted: “Stop!”

There was silence.

I proceeded with one word, "Price?"

I figured why not make this into a bidding war. Someone in the crowd shouted “65” (US dollars), another “35”. I remember the Internet café owner mentioned that it’d cost about $30.

So, I said, "25".

Then silence again, as I glanced around me.

A lone voice from behind me said, "OK, if you two sit in the back seats.”

Without further ado, we got into the back seat of the car. Heaving a sigh, I smiled at Sharon and looked out the window. We fell silent, occupied with our own reflections of the day's events. We knew it would be a long drive and most likely we wouldn’t get into Ho Chi Minh until late at night. The driver hit the road without observing any speed limits. At this point, nothing mattered, as long as we were heading toward Vietnam.

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