The family and I recently joined me for a several hundred kilometer roundtrip visa run through the Thai border in Phsar Prum, Cambodia.
👋 Bye ChairWoman Meow 🐈⬛
The government here in Cambodia along with most other SE Asian countries, has a very xenophobic immigration policy, and that basically means nobody can acquire citizenship no matter how long they live in most of the countries here. In Cambodia's case, the price of citizenship is $300,000 USD, and without it you can't own land or have any basic rights.
In my case, since 2010 life has only become increasingly difficult year by year here, and now I am no longer eligible for renewable one-year visas, 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 time the family joined me, so we had to bid farewell to ChairWoman Meow, but not without giving her lots of love before we left.
🛣️ Backroads To Pailin 🎰
Even though we live on the Thai border with a crossing gate, it has never been an international crossing, and for the last several years even crossings between local Thai and Cambodians has been closed. For this reason I have to leave Cambodia through another location, the easiest one is a roughly 6-hour drive to Phsar Prum, a casino town just outside Pailin, Cambodia.
My current visa situation is that I can get a one-month on arrival, then a 6-month extension within the country, then another 3-month extension before having to start all over again. There are only two visa categories here, tourist and working, so if I want to get the one-year visa I have to open a fake business, register it, pay taxes, get a work permit and several other licenses, around $3,000 USD, and in recent years the government wants me to pay fines dating back to 2010 for missing work permit years, even the years I never lived in Cambodia, quite ridiculous.
🥪 Picnics Are Mandatory 🧺
The local authorities where we live now are very understanding, so as long as I have a working visa they won't bother us for tax registration, business licenses, etc., at least in the beginning while we are getting on our feet and trying to get a project launched. In order to make the most of the situation, I decided I might as well spend a half day or so in Thailand and take the family along for the experience.
Picnics along the way are basically our favorite part of road trips, especially because we travel in our tuk-tuk and this makes it easy to stop anywhere we find some shade along the road make a small tuk-tuk picnic. Srey-Yuu rarely leaves the inside of the house or tuk-tuk without being forced, and even on picnic stops she'll stay in tuk-tuk until the food is ready, teenage life yo'.
🗣️ Time To Eat 🔔
Monkey-B and big sister both received unlimited screen time for this road trip, and these opportunities allow me to see how much self-control they have. Monkey-B has proven to be a podcast addict with little self control, not a bad habit, but she just needs to know when to take the headphones off.
There is little vegetarian in Cambodia, especially along the backroads, so we always prepare something for the road or bring things to cook along the way. In this case fried some vegan ham and brought some bread to make simple sandwiches, nothing fancy, just quick calories to keep us moving along the dusty Mad Max style roads. More to come in Part 2.....
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I didn't know it was so difficult and expensive to get a visa in Cambodia, you have to do that process every ten months if you want to live there for life? Or there may come a time when they will not give you a visa anymore? Here in Panama it is also difficult for immigrants but they have more options.
Foreigners willing to play along with a corrupt visa regime can get renewable one-year visas without leaving the country. The unfortunate part is that the majority of folks doing this process live here and do not work here. The government has become addicted to the money for all of these work permits, tourist licenses, business licenses, tax payments and other things, all from people who aren't even working here.
There are only two visa options here, work and tourist, so a digital nomad or someone working for a foreign company is going to have pay taxes twice for living here, making Cambodia unattractive. I prefer to do these complicated visa runs in order to avoid all of this bureaucracy. One day if I ever make a business, I wouldn't mind at all to get all the proper licenses and permits.
Besides addicted it would be worrying if its dependent of that viscous money, is Cambodia that populated by foreigners? I have seen online places like Bali that are becoming attractive because they are cheap to live, I have told my wife that may be I would like to move some where else in the future
There aren't that many foreigners living here, much more tourists than residents. However, I think tourist money is easier for the government because they don't have to deal with respecting the human rights of foreign residents. I think the government would love to chase out all non-rich foreign residents and focus on making money from the big investors and the tourism sector. A little guy like me making a small income from some English classes isn't very important to the government despite my work being valuable to the citizens.
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.
After reading the whole article I understand that you are under quite a lot of stress, but I hope you will be able to start a project very soon. Tuk-tuk really make your trips more worthwhile. Best wishes to you.
I am glad to have returned and now be in possession of a new visa, although only one month. Soon we'll have to go the capital and get a 6-month visa extension, but at the moment it's the only way for me to live here. It all means another tuk-tuk trip coming soon....
I hope you reach your destination safely without anything, and it's true that a picnic is a must, to relieve stress and make yourself and your family happy is important
We are back home now, it was a fun family trip despite the surroundings being a bit boring. We are easily entertained, so a trip to 7-Eleven was quite a big feature.
These countries seem to be even more restrictive than European ones, where you can apply for asylum at the border if nothing else... I find that cruel ...
!DHEDGE
No doubt, at least the non-EU countries anyhow. Asylum application is only possible if you are in danger or fleeing violence. When we were stranded in Suriname during COVID-19 for three years, we considered fleeing to French Guiana to make an EU asylum application. We knew we'd be denied in the end, but it would've allowed us to escape the hardship in Suriname while awaited our court hearing.
In the end we didn't do it because the river border was being guarded by the Suriname soldiers, and locals said they were firing upon anyone crossing the river. I did live in Albania once for 4 months, the visa was free for one-year, no questions asked. I would still like to move there some day with my family, but it's not quite as easy for Cambodians.
I think it is easier to get into the EU, well, maybe it's difficult to get there, but when you get to the border you let yourself get caught by the police and you ask for asylum. And then they have to put you in the asylum seeker category, whether you are a refugee or an economic migrant. At least that is the practice. There are many asylum seekers from Pakistan, from Afghanistan - and there is no war there now, I believe - and, more recently, from African countries. In Slovenia, for example, asylum procedures take more than a year, and most of these asylum seekers, once they have been certified as asylum seekers, then go on to some other EU country where they can earn more money than they can here.
We could easily apply for asylum, but we don't have any valid reason because we are not fleeing war, famine, or violence. As far as I know, American citizens have never been eligible for asylum anywhere in the world other than isolated cases of political asylum. As far as Cambodians go, the last time they were eligible for asylum anywhere in the world was back in the 1970s during the genocide.
The EU would be a really bad place for us to live as well because we are uneducated and there is a high cost of living there. Non-EU countries like Albania are much easier to immigrate too, and even happy to take in folks without university degrees and job offers.
Oh, now I understand the situation a little better. Yes, maybe Albania would be acceptable to you, it probably won't be in the EU for a few years. Or Macedonia? Anyway, good luck to you.
Yay! 🤗
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take good care and keep safe to your family.
Thank you my friend, it was a safe journey.
Good luck my friend. Have a safe trip.
Thank you, it's good to take a road trip every now and then.