The Reverse Skin Tax

Leaving Memot early the morning after Sarath's wedding, we headed back to Phnom Penh. As Water Festival (Bon Om Tuk) began that afternoon, it was one of the worst possible days to be traveling to Phnom Penh. The population of the city supposedly doubles for the three-day festival from roughly three to six million people, and many of the villagers coming to town were doing so at the same time as us.

An additional concern was that at some point in the day - no one seemed to know for sure when - the bridge across the Tonle Sap would be closed to vehicular traffic. For most of the trip, the traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting; in fact, we were making really good time. About fifteen kilometers outside of town, however, we came to a dead stop. Over half an hour we moved perhaps a half kilometer. Shortly thereafter, we came to a checkpoint. Several police officers were waving all minivans (the typical, cramped, and overstuffed method for travel) to the side of the road. Apparently, only private vehicles were allowed past this checkpoint and everyone taking minivans or buses had to get out at this point and take either a moto or a tuk-tuk the 15km into town.

As we pulled up to the checkpoint, we were waved to the side of the road. The driver pulled up to one of the police officers and, in Khmer, said that he was transporting foreigners back to Phnom Penh. The officer simply nodded, and waved us down the road in which we were just about the only vehicle with more than two wheels. Just before we got to the Japanese Friendship Bridge across the Tonle Sap we came to another checkpoint. The driver tried the same technique as before, but to no avail. We were directed into a dirt parking lot, from which it was implied we would gather our belongings and walk across the bridge and back in to town.

Clearly all of us preferred to take the van all the way into town to be dropped off at our houses. So one of my coworkers and I (both foreigners) hopped out and, in Khmer, explained to the police officers that we were just coming back from a work trip to the provinces. He asked why we hadn't come back the day before, when the roads were open, to which we replied that we had to work. He seemed to mull this over for a minute, before waving our van over to him. As he did so, he gave us a nod, and we were on our way over the bridge. While crossing, one of my Khmer colleagues said, rather straightforwardly that it was because of us foreigners that we were allowed through both checkpoints. I joking replied simply "you're welcome."

It was a really interesting dynamic though. There is absolutely no way that a van full of Khmers would have been able to convince a police officer to let them through because they were coming back from a business trip. Perhaps if there was a bit of money involved or the driver was well-connected (what well-connected Khmer drives minivans for a living though?) passage would be a possibility. While we all felt a little uncomfortable with the special treatment we were getting, I suppose it was some pay back (pardon the pun) for being charged higher prices at the market, for travel, and other things. It would be much nicer, however, if we were on more level social ground, but it's going to be a long time before anything of that nature happens.