so every 10 months I have to spend lots of time and money to travel to Thailand for 5 minutes and return to Cambodia
This is something that I hear various gripes from for all expats living in all of the SE Asian countries. I honestly can't understand why they make us jump through these hoops even though they are, for the most part, simply going to let us walk straight back in.
May sound stupid, but perhaps I can draw a trailer park comparison. In Indiana where I'm from, it is nearly impossible to find an RV Park that will allow you to park on a yearly basis. They always claim it's because of winter hardships, but in Colorado I lived in several year round RV and mobile home parks, winter wasn't a problem there.
I ultimately realized that these poor states make it hard to live full time in a RV Park in order to prevent a redneck home situation, cars on blocks, unfinished go-kart projects, etc. Any random tourist passing through Indiana in a nice motorhome won't have to encounter trailer trash living in something that would turn to dust if it were towed. For this reason travel trailer folks have to live in mobile home parks.
I think this is the Cambodian version of this situation. The rich foreigners will overcome these economic and bureaucratic hurdles easily because they can throw money at it. Any foreigner that can't occasionally cough up $3,000 USD here and there in corrupt fees isn't worth having in the country, so goodbye Filipinos, Nigerians, and all other working class foreigners. The government seems hellbent on turning Cambodia into an economy of the upper classes and the service industry to support them, and it kind of reminds of the land we both left behind.
Good comparison and it makes sense. In a way they kind of do the same thing here and when they decide to eliminate you seems to be arbitrary but this is a communist country so perhaps they actually do kind of know what you are up to and whether or not you have any money. This could come from looking at your place of residence and seeing if the rent there is expensive enough to presume you are a tourist of a higher order.
I have heard stories that rich Chinese are taking over certain parts of the country like Sinouukeville, which i almost certainly spelled incorrectly.
Yep, a sad reality, but something we as foreigners just have to deal with. Sihanoukville already went through a Chinese takeover, but COVID kind of wiped it out, so now there is an abandoned Chinatown there and many empty casino towers. A good chunk of the Chinese moneymen brought their riches to the border near us where there is one Chinese casino and an endless amount of projects going on, all this despite the border near us having never been an international crossing. Even since COVID local Thai and Khmer traffic is not permitted, only medical emergencies.