Do not speak thai with cambodian immigration

[fester]

(We got this email to the forum admin from a member who want to be anonymous, for obvious reasons, so I repost it here on his behalf. /Fester)

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On Saturday 22nd I made a visa run to Aranyaprathet. All went well at the Thai border, but things changed when I got to the Cambodian Visa counter. Not taking into account the recent 'trouble' between Thailand and Cambodia I made the mistake of talking to the Cambodian immigration officers in Thai. I also made the mistake of asking them why, when they refused to accept $20 for the visa, and were insisting on 1,000 Baht. The reason is obvious but my understanding is that the official charge is $20 and that that is normally acceptable. The immigration officer freaked out, hit me on the back of my hand and refused to accept my application. His reason being that I spoke with him in Thai and he is Cambodian, and since I'm a farang then I should only speak English with him. In order to avoid any further problems, I apologised for using Thai and offered to pay 1,000 Baht as he'd wanted. The guy was unrelenting, he refused to accept my application and told me that if I needed a visa I should go to the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok to obtain one. He suggested if I was unhappy with this then he could take off his uniform and come outside and fight me. It was impossible to calm the guy down, he'd lost the plot.

I returned to the Thai border and explained the situation to the immigration officers. The senior officer made a call and after 10 minutes a large 4WD came across from Cambodia with a senior Cambodian immigration officer. This guy spoke to me in Thai, by default, and asked me to explain the situation. After this he made a phone call, which involved a bit of yelling, and then apologised to me and suggested I return to the counter and there would be no problems.

When I got there another immigration officer opened the window and asked me to explain what went wrong. After this he inspected my passport, noted I was British and stated that I had no right to speak Thai and as I was British I should use only English. Then he insisted that I go into the office and apologise personally to evey single member of staff. Following this he gave me a blank sheet of paper and insisted that I right a letter of apology and andmission of guilt for having spoken to them in Thai. Following this the visa was issued and everything as normal.

In conclusion there is obviously still a lot of bad feeling between Cambodians and Thais, so don't speak Thai with them, and don't question their corrupt practices either if you need to have a trouble free visa run.

[cbatson]

Wow...  Regardless of the state of relations between Thailand and Cambodia, this kind of behavior on the part of the immigration officers is juvenile, irrational, and wholly unwarranted.  Granted, Cambodia is a convenient destination for visa runs, but demands for an apology would have been my cue to leave.

Chuck

[Rinrada]

Gota  remember Cambodia is just emerging from almost 1/2 a centuary in the "dark ages".It all takes time and there are still lots of advantages for most of us  over there,remember the probs.with Nam.The majority of the present government were up to 10-15 years ago working as toilet attendants in Parisian hotels so must Phut cha-cha...a lille bit.A couple of "Tin-Son" buffalo brains border ######s dont represent all Khmers. ::

However No excuse.