Paedophile's rubbish dump scam

Khmer440 is a funny online forum. I used to read it while living in Phnom Penh but found it less relevant to Siem Reap so stopped after relocating in 2007. Recently a friend, a fan of the site, told me last year Khmer440 forumners were already onto the British paedophile David Fletcher.

Indeed they were. You can read the thread here.

I find Khmer440 funny because of the spats between the different bar owners and the expats who frequent the different establishments. It's also instructive because some of these guys have been in Phnom Penh for a long time and know the ins-and-outs. And the gossip is always good entertainment. I am glad I live in Siem Reap though. Siem Reap just seems less...complicated.

Anyway, I was reading the thread and found this bit interesting. From ryan_asia:

Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 3:46 pm Post subject:
I was visiting Phnom Penh around two and a half years ago and stayed at the guesthouse next to DF's (David Fletcher's) bar. I saw the fliers on his tables about helping the people at the dump. Back then I was stupid and thought anybody could help save the world. I asked David what I could do to help and he replied that the people needed rubber boots.

I asked him how many were needed and what the cost was. He needed 100 pairs and said they cost $3.00 each. Thankfully I didn't have $300 on me at the time. The next day I asked a Khmer lady working were I stayed next door if she could go hunt them down for me. I didn't want to go myself and get ripped off with Barang pricing.

I gave her $300 and asked her to see if she couldn't get them for less as I was buying a large quantity. I assumed that was the end of that money but she came back with the boots and gave me back $150. Incredible honesty given what she was getting paid for a salary.

Read the whole post here. Thanks for sharing ryan_asia.

Many times at Phnom Penh's riverside my friends and I would get accosted by some Khmer man with flyers trying to convince us to pay to visit the dump. I think it was US$15 for food and the trip there. The pushy man would even harass us in the restaurant, so I'm sure he gets a commission (why else try so hard?). Often the man would ignore me, only giving the fliers to my white friends. Of course I always advised friends against signing up for the trip, believing it to be a scam (turns out I was right - how shocking).

Fletcher is now behind bars. He was arrested in Bangkok after fleeing Cambodia because of an expose in UK's Sunday Mirror.

Anyway the point of this post: Tourists to Cambodia who would like to help please do not participate in the work of some random "charitable" organisation you encounter, no matter how persuasive it seems. You need to find out more.

One of the strategies Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, recommends is this:

"Aid agencies should increasingly be concentrated in the most difficult environments, accept more risk. Ordinary citizens should not support poorly informed [may I add, and intentionally corrupt ones] vociferous lobbies whose efforts are counterproductive and severely constrain what the Aid agencies can do."

The corruption of Cambodia

Benevolence comes to human beings "as naturally as fire turns upward or water turns downward", provided that persons in position of authority illustrate benevolence in their own lives - Mo Tzu (墨子) (ca. 470 BCE–ca. 391 BCE)

I have been feeling depressed since a conversation with a Cambodian I know and whom I have had financial dealings with; someone I have always regarded as honest and decent.

"T" met a Khmer woman who started a project ostensibly to help Cambodian children. She rented a 5 bedroom villa to house the children after securing funding from a Kiwi man. It didn't take long, fewer than 6 months, before the truth emerged. She was pocketing the bulk of the sponsor's money while spending a little on the children. The donor promptly cut her off. Without the money she sent the children back to their families and left the 5 bedroom house.

The Kiwi man realised what a great job running a children's centre is - if you can get it. So he asked my friend if he would like to be partners. T would be responsible for getting the children set up in a home while the Kiwi guy would bring in the money. They would share the profits. T thought it was a great opportunity. After all, he told me, "there is no limit to sponsor money".

I asked why this Kiwi guy would want to do this since he is obviously rich to sponsor the kids in the first place. T shrugged and said simply, "the rich want to be richer."

So now T has his own idea on how to make more money. Basically he would like me to set up a guesthouse with him. He said "we must cheat the customer a little". "What do you mean?" "Oh, many people do like that in Cambodia. Tell customer some of the money go to orphanage but take the money." He paused. "Maybe give orphanage a little."

He told me a Japanese man married to a Cambodian woman did something like that. He raised money for 100 wells but only built 10. I don't know how he got found out but T says "he cannot go home to Japan now."

I told T I am not surprised. I said if I did something like this I would be thrown in jail in Singapore for fraud.

T laughed and said, "in Cambodia no problem." He said we will not get caught because we can pay to get all the documentation and he can also arrange for the photos of the orphans.

I was shaking my head and saying no, no, it is wrong. I told T I myself have been cheated by my former manager Sipha and I felt hurt. I do not want to hurt other people because I know what that feels like, the betrayal, the hurt. And you know what T said? "You got cheated by Sipha because in your last life you cheated her," he grinned.

At that point I wanted to up and leave. Conversation O-V-E-R. How do you argue with someone who draws from "past lives" as his defence?

(By the way, by "argue" I mean the definitions below, and not "quarrel", which is what "argue" is often mistaken to be:

ar·gue (ärgy)
v. ar·gued, ar·gu·ing, ar·gues
v.tr.
1. To put forth reasons for or against; debate: "It is time to stop arguing tax-rate reductions and to enact them" (Paul Craig Roberts).
2. To attempt to prove by reasoning; maintain or contend: The speaker argued that more immigrants should be admitted to the country.
3. To give evidence of; indicate: "Similarities cannot always be used to argue descent" (Isaac Asimov).
4. To persuade or influence (another), as by presenting reasons: argued the clerk into lowering the price.
thefreedictionary.com

"Past lives" a lazy way of explaining things, of arguing. And it absolves people of responsibility. By this "reasoning", a Cambodian's bad actions will always be justified - because he/she was aggrieved in his/her past life(s).

This is what I find to be the most ridiculous, not just ridiculous - harmful - aspect of Buddhism. (In general I am attracted to Buddhist philosophy about mindfulness and non-attachment and knowing oneself but I have serious problems with parts of it. A Khmer friend, a former monk himself, once told me he thinks many monks are parasites. They do not contribute to society; only pray and beg. But I think there are good monks - those who teach English to other Khmers, and take in poor children in the wats (pagodas). And wasn't it the monks in Burma who tried to spark a revolution?)

"Past lives" is also the reason (story) Cambodians give (tell) themselves in order to make them feel better that so-and-so is rich and they poor - "He must have been a good man in his past life, that is why he is rewarded with riches. I must have been a bad person, that's why I am poor."

I continued arguing with T because I was curious. I asked, when does it all end? If A does harm to B and B harms A in the next life, can A harm B again in the third life? Why not? What if the harm B did to A was much greater (say kill 5 members of his family versus 2)? When will it end? How do you measure when justice has been weighed and meted out fairly?

And anyway, doesn't being a Buddhist mean you are supposed to be a good person?

To this T said, "we believe before we die, we go to wash ourselves in the Ganges River, you know in India, to wash away all the bad things." I was confused because that's what Hindus do, not Buddhists, but I suspect T himself is confused - Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism (the Chinese altars you see in all the Cambodian shops is Taoist) - everything has been merged into one for many Khmers.

How convenient. At the time when Sipha stole from me, I could not get my head around it: how she would pray religiously and give food and money to monks every bon (festival), yet ripped me off the moment she could. Then I read George Orwell's Burmese Days (George Orwell was at one time a policeman in Burma).

In the opening chapters of the book, there is a fat, disgusting, police chief, who does much evil but who thinks before he dies he will build stupas to accumulate merit. Many people I have told this story to tell me confession works the same way for Catholics - confess and your sins are forgiven and you are redeemed.

(My view of religion is best expressed by Seneca (ca. 4 BC – AD 65): "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.")

I told T there is more to life than money, otherwise I would not be here in Cambodia. He looked at me thoughtfully. Then he spoke: "You know now in Cambodia Khmer people say if you have a good heart you will never get rich; the people who have black heart are the people who are rich."

This is what seriously depresses me about Cambodia. The people are getting greedy and more corrupt by the day. A person who starts out kind and honest like T sees his rulers, neighbours, all getting rich, often by ruthless and corrupt means and thinks, "Here I am trying to do an honest day's work and for what? I will never be as rich."

I keep thinking of the Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu (墨子) (ca. 470 BCE–ca. 391 BCE) and what he believed: that benevolence comes to human beings "as naturally as fire turns upward or water turns downward", provided that persons in position of authority illustrate benevolence in their own lives.

It is no wonder T thinks the way he does - why should the common people just stand by while their rulers and elite get rich selling the country. You are just a fool to do that. After all, money is power.

If you think about it, money was the thing that could have saved a Khmer (or anyone) when the Khmer Rouge took control, and foreigners fled or were evacuated. If you did not have money to pay your way out of the country you were stuck and faced huge suffering and even death.

For Cambodians who grew up with the war (as T did), money must be hugely important. There is also more than a little envy when they see the Khmers who did escape the war, and who ended up in the US, France and what have you and who are now back running businesses, who have bought large tracts of land, all with their foreign-earned dollars.

I don't blame T because I have never suffered because of a lack of money (my only memory was when I could not afford a SGD$400 Motorola modem - yes, that is what they cost back then - for Internet dialup connection). I cannot understand what it feels like to lust after money - the desperation to be rich.

The knowledge that I am living among people like these does have an effect on me. It makes me want to get out, out of Cambodia, out of a place where people are willing to sacrifice their morals, their principles, for money. So many travellers have told me Vietnam is like that now - everyone is out on the make, the Vietnamese will even try to rip you off over a bottle of mineral water. Travellers tell me it is exhausting, always having to be on your guard because everyone is out to rip you off. I really hope Cambodia will not go down that road but I'm not optimistic.

I also feel like I have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Because the people's obsession with money was the reason I left Singapore.

My friend's email was hacked and used for a scam

Picture credit: hoax-slayer.com.

For anyone who emails from an Internet shop or hotel in Cambodia, please take care to log out properly. I've used PCs at some of the Net cafes here in Siem Reap where people have forgotten to log out of their facebook, yahoo messenger or hotmail account.

Anyway, this is what happened to my friend:

"Yesterday, my email account was hacked and an email was sent to all the contacts in my address book.

I was using the computer in a Melbourne Hotel. After i logged out from the internet, i wanted to delete the cache but an error occured, i wasn't able to delete the cookies. The next morning, i received phone calls from my friends to check if i was safe and alerted me about the scam. I was not able to send out any emails due to an 'over-limit' so was unable to inform everyone.

PLEASE IGNORE IT AND BEWARE, THIS IS THE LATEST INTERNET SCAM.

Below is the email that was sent out:

From: [My friend's name]
Sent: Tue, December 15, 2009 3:13:02 AM
Subject: Sad News!!!

Am sorry i didn't inform you about my urgent trip to London, i don't have much time on the PC here,so i have to brief you my present situation which requires your urgent response actually, I had a trip to London but unfortunately for me all my money got stolen at the hotel where i lodged due to a robbery incident that happened in the hotel.I had been so restless since last night because i have been without any money moreover the Hotel's telephone lines here got disconnected by the robbers and they are trying to get them fixed back i have access to only emails at the library because my mobile cant work here so i didn't bring it along,please i want you to help me with money so please can you send me 850 Pounds or any amount you can afford so when i return back i would refund it back to you as soon as i get home,Am so confused right now and don't know what to do, I had been to the embassy and they are currently looking into my case,Please send the money through Western Union Money Transfer so i will get it immediately its sent,i want you to please transfer the money as soon as possible.Here is the details you need for the transfer below,

Receivers Names: [My friend's name]
Receivers Address: 328 Mile End Road
City- London
Country- UK
Zip Code- E1 4NS

Please get back to me as soon as you have the money sent,once you are done with the transfer just help me to scan a copy of the receipt given to you by Western Union or help me to write out the Money Transfer Control Number(MTCN)

I will be waiting for your help. Thank you so much

Best Regards
[My friend's name].

Cambodian man "telepathically opening car door"

This Cambodian man Nhean Phaloek tells reporters of his telepathic ability to open car doors. Look ma, no hands! What's the bet there's a midget opening the door? LOL.

Haven't the reporters heard of automatic doors and remote controls? Good grief. And what some people would not do for a bit of fame. Pathetic.

You want to see some real magic? "Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed" tells us how magicians and common tricksters perform illusions as suspending a woman in the air and levitating and making an army tank disappear. Cris Angel himself shows you how he performs street levitation - with help from a couple of fake feet and cleverly cut trousers.

In my opinion the show producers should get a public service award.

Also give an award to India's "Guru Busters", men and women who go around India exposing the many Indian charlatans who claim to be medicine men and women, people who make a huge amount of money from poor and uneducated peasants. The brave men and women from India's Science and Rationalist Association have been busting fake fakirs and the lot since 1985. They are brave because they get attacked by the furious frausters who sometimes turn violent after they are exposed.

Jyotimroy Dutta, a Bengali writer and former Hindu philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, told The Independent: What stands out is the courage of these Rationalists against the whole jungle of Hindu superstition. Some of these godmen are very powerful even Communist politicians visit them. In a way, the plasticity of Hinduism leaves it open to hoaxers. As Khushwant Singh, a leading Indian author and Rationalist, explained: Hinduism is a very liberal belief. You can say there is one god, a million gods, no god, or that god is a phallus, and get away with it.

"I saw how people were being fooled," Prabhir Ghosh, the now 64 year old President of the Rationalists, said. "And I saw how this fradulent spiritualism was being used to exploit the poor.

But it is not just the poor who are ignorant. Former Prime Minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao was the laughing stock when he was moved that guru Sai Baba produced a gold watch supposedly out of thin air. But watch the video below, played back in slow motion and you decide if it is magic or just sleight of hand.



"Several Indian Prime Ministers had close links with gurus. Jawaharlal Nehru had a guru, as did his daughter, Indira Gandhi. Mrs. Gandhi's favorite, Dhirendra Brahmachari, fell from favor after his habit of having holy messages appear on blank sheets of paper was exposed as a new application of an old high school science experiment involving the use of invisible ink. When the guru, attempting a comeback, greeted devotees with electric shocks, the rationalists stormed his ashram and exposed a car battery with wires beneath the guru's throne." From the New York Times' Guru Busters debunk all that is mystical.

I have sympathy for poor and uneducated peasants but it's hard to have any for these supposed educated people. It's just pathetic, really.

Now if only we had Guru Busters in Cambodia. I am determined to learn a magic trick (from Breaking the Magician's Code, of course!) and then show Chhun Hy so as to prove to him how trickery can be used to fool people. "The trouble is, Mr Singh, the writer, commented sadly [to the Independent], you can have explicit proof that these godmen are up to no good, but it doesn't seem to shake the faith of their devotees."

Siem Reap Tonle Sap boat tour scams

I'll have to find the old photos to show how the place has changed. Before, it was a menagerie. When you arrive, boat men will come up to you to tout their services and you hop on a boat. There was no jetty like today.

The boatman told me why. A Korean company now operates the Tonle Sap boat tours in Siem Reap.

To get to the Tonle Sap, you need to take a tuk-tuk from Siem Reap town. We paid Phern USD15 for the whole day but a return trip by an independent tuktuk is just USD6 or 7. If you book with a travel agent it is USD10.

The boat ticket itself is another matter. Of course, they tried to scam us Singaporeans. My aunt and her friend were charged USD15 per person. I refused because it was ridiculously expensive. I argued and tried to bargain but the corrupt, arrogant man running the ticketing sales said it was "fixed price". Just as the boat was about to leave, (and while I was relaxing with a coconut (2000 riels) at one of the little stalls) the man decided to let me on free, partly because Phern asked on my behalf, but mainly because he had profited enough from my friends and it would have cost him nothing to let me go on.

Later, I found out from a travel agent that the REAL PRICE is USD12 PER BOAT if there is one or two persons on that boat. If there are three of you, it becomes USD5 per pax, which makes it USD15 PER BOAT. That means he made a profit of USD18 out of the boat trip we took. Imagine if I too, had paid the USD15. And you can bet the boatman who does the actual work gets zero of that. [Note to the Korean company Sou Ching Investment Company: Get your act together. At least the entrance fee at other tourist spots in Cambodia are genuinely "fixed price".)

[Update 28 July 2009: I just found out this blog post was quoted in tripadvisor.com. I should have made clear you will not get the prices I mentioned if you book through a travel agent since you have to compensate the travel agent for his/her service. You will be charged USD10 per person if there are 1 or 2 of you. This INCLUDES tuktuk, which is very fair, because as mentioned, the tuktuk transfer itself is USD6. This means effectively you are paying USD7 per person for the boat trip (USD10-USD6/2). If there are 3 of you, you will be charged USD8 per person, which means you will be paying USD6 per person for the boat trip (USD8- USD6/3). I just verified this with the travel agent next door to my shop so you can book through them if you like. It is called CMT travel agency. Also, please note that the prices may go up with the high season (Nov-Feb). Also interesting is how the boat fee differs with skin colour- white people get charged USD20, Asians between USD12 - USD15 per person].

My advice for travellers planning to go visit the floating villages in Siem Reap is to BOOK THE TOUR WITH A TRAVEL AGENT AHEAD OF TIME, paying the prices I mentioned. This is because once you have made the long trip out, the boat ticketing people know they have got you. There is absolutely nothing else to do there, so they know you will pay whatever they charge to go on the ride.

The other scam happens halfway on the boat, when the boatman will try to get you to visit a school so you can buy supplies for the children. Fine - except what they charge for the supplies. Here is one traveller's experience, as posted on travelfish.org:

I agree that the floating village is not worth to see. We got there with a Tuk-Tuk, payed the entrance fee ($ 20 pp!!!), got a small boat (we were the only 2 tourists), we shiped around the village for half an hour, but there was nothing special to see. After introducing a little of their lifestyle we were asked if we want to visit a school. We agreed because there was nothing else to see. But they nearly forced us to buy some pencils, pens and books for the school (they insisted to bring something for all 40 pupils). We would love to do it, but the "shop" in the floating village asked $1 for 1 pencil! Here you really get ripped off! So we bought only 4 pencils and the crew (2 young boys) got really angry and the didn't speak to us anymore! I would not recommand to go there!

I had already known about this school scam so I told the boatman, since I speak Khmer. He kept saying, "mian p'new klah chet la-or, chong jouy k'meng k'meng" or "some tourists heart good, want to help the children."

I despise this Cambodian tactic. The tour guides, the local NGO staff and the boatmen use it. They imply your heart is not good if you don't help, or rather, fall for the scam. I know exactly how my heart is, and what I do everyday for a group of Cambodians working at Bloom, and then some--thank you very much. I don't need your pathetic, transparent attempts at blackmail.

Still, some tourists find it hard to say no. See this one on travelblog.org:

A bit further along our driver asked us if we were interested in buying some stationery and books for one of the local very poor schools. Well, what can you say to that without sounding like a total jerk? Of course we agreed and before we could say "Boat House" we were moored alongside the local General Store - floating variety. Now this is where the fun began. The shop proprietor was obviously well versed in this scenario as she met us with a package of books and pencils - asking price US$25!!! "You must be joking", I said. "Do I look like a fool?" After a bit of haggling, during which time I was feeling like we'd been totally scammed we finally settled on $10 and not a penny more! What a con - and for some reason, I felt like I should have known it was going to go down like this. Anyway, we were then dropped off at the local school comprising of one floating classroom complete with basketball court on the top to present our "gift" to the eagerly awaiting principal. I only hope the kids actually get to use the books, which by the way would have cost little more than a $1 in Siem Reap."

Anyway like the travelfish poster, our boatman became sullen after repeated attempts to get me to buy the stationery. Well, I give as good as I get and I stopped chatting with him. Despite the unpleasantness, I tipped him USD3! (10% of his monthly wage!) See how crazy I am. Heart of marshmallow. I pity him because I know USD30 is too little to live on.

Other things I can share is: wear sensible shoes when going on this trip. The metal ramp leading from the jetty to the boats have hardly any grip. It is very slippery and dangerous. Thank goodness there are bars you can hold onto when making your way down. If you wear high heels you will regret it. I wore flip flops and struggled. You not only have to make the walk down the ramp, but also up, when you get back.

Along the way on the river trip, a small child will suddenly appear on the boat. Our young girl was rowed by her brother. Their boat comes really close so she can hop on with a bucket filled with cold drinks. You can buy if you like, I think for USD1 a drink. We didn't so she hopped onto the other boat. We were just amazed at how quickly it all happened.

In two days I have heard two scams that happened to two groups of backpackers in Scambodia. I'm sure many Khmers are just as angry at their countrymen for being so short-sighted. As the tourists told me, they will return to their home countries and tell people of their troubles in this country. Do you think people will be encouraged to come?

Some Cambodian friends tell me these people "kert klai, ot kert vwairng" (think short-term, not long term). Other Cambodians tell me it is the government's fault. Because it corrupt and takes what it can, the ordinary Khmer also wants his/her own share.

Cambodian Consulate run by teenagers?

A poster on travelpod.com asked, "So the Cambodian Consulate is ran by teenagers huh?"

Here is their story:

We grabbed a bite to eat and caught a tuk tuk to the border about 6 miles from the bus station. We were driven to the Cambodian Consulate on a side road and told we needed to purchase visas. Ken and Jino both demanded we go to the border which they finally did….so you don’t need to go to the Cambodian Consulate to get a visa which is really a roadside shop next to the Cambodian Consulate sign. We were escorted thru Thai departure, thru the health check, thru Cambodian immigration and Cambodian visa procedure by a young man in a yellow shirt we couldn’t seem to shake. We did end up paying 25 bucks for a visa instead of 20 but what can you do. On the other side we tried again to shake our yellow shirted friend but he was joined by another yellow shirted escort and it was impossible to shake them. They finally convinced us to get on the free shuttle to the taxi stand, at the taxi stand we were escorted thru the taxi stand out the back door and thru a trash filled lot to another street where our taxi waited. ??? The taxi ride was only 40 so we took it. I have heard that it takes 4 or 5 hours to get to Siem Reap, but we made it in 2 hours. On the outskirts of town we pull over to take a tuk tuk to the hotel, something about the taxi couldn’t go into Siem Reap. We finally loaded up into the tuk tuk and watched as our taxi drove past us into town. Our tuk tuk driver wanted to take us to a really cheap hotel, but Ken had already picked out a hotel and we were taken there.

Yes, a typical day at the Cambodian side of the border with Thailand. I myself have a similar story.

Corrupt airport officials: luggage scam

I just received this email from a Bloom customer:

Dear Diana,

We went to the Russian market and picked up the bags and packed them into two suitcases. We went to the airport too early, were the first people to check-in, and got our boarding passes and headed upstairs. After going through customs we were stopped where they scan your hand luggage and told to go back to the counter, that something was wrong with our luggage. I stayed and Larry went to find out (I already knew what they were going to say).

They asked Larry why he had all of the bags. He said they are gifts for teachers at our school, we are a big school, the bags are great for teachers, etc., etc. He opened a bag and showed them how great it is and showed them the pockets. They said we can't let you take this many bags because it has "Made in Cambodia" on them. You have to go this office and fill out paperwork to take them out of Cambodia. Of course, the office is closed today, so you have to give us some money. They took US$40 ($20 for each of them) and told Larry that they knew he did not understand and Larry said he would never do it again. We did nothing to try and disguise the bags. We should have mixed them up with our clothes and carried some on . . .

It seemed funny to me that they would not want to buy things made in Cambodia and take them home for gifts? It wasn't an antique Buddha or anything. I thinking that perhaps we might get stopped in Singapore, but I didn't think they would care in Cambodia.

The bags look really nice and I think they will sell.

You can imagine how angry I am that these damn customs officials. They not only cheated my customers, but intimidated them. I have sold our bags to many, many customers who hand-carry the bags on the plane with them. I myself lug our bags to Singapore when I go home. This has never, ever happened to me or to any of my other customers, because there is obviously no such rule about buying and bringing Cambodian-made things out of the country, barring stolen historic artifacts, of course.

The only fee you have to pay if you are bringing things from Cambodia is at the other end, when you've arrived at your destination. There, you may have to pay GST or VAT, according to each individual country's rules. For many countries, you won't need to pay VAT or GST if the value of the items is less than USD500.

The Cambodian officials did this now because of Khmer New Year (which starts today and the holidays last for three days). Robberies and cheating always increase during Khmer New Year and Pchum Ben because people need money when they visit their families in the provinces; you can't go home empty handed, Chhun Hy told me. In fact, last Pchum Ben, Chhun Hy would not go back to Kampong Cham because he did not want to spend a lot of money on his family. I myself was cheated two Pchum Bens ago by a Cambodian woman who handed me a fake USD100 note.

I feel sorry for the country and its people when something like this happens. Do you think tourists will want to buy Cambodian products if word of this gets out? How many people would want to put up with this nonsense? You can imagine many would rather avoid similar scenes with Cambodian customs.

Anyway, just so readers know about another scam that happens in Scambodia.

More electricity woes

Someone posted a comment on my blog post Cambodia's expensive electricity:

We just received an electric bill for USD300 for last month. We are charged .28 per kwh. We believe we're being ripped off by someone in the building because we are foreigners and many friends here have told us that often times foreigners will unknowingly be paying for many people's electricity in their residence. We hate to be that suspicious, but we were away a lot of last month and left everything turned off. I'm not sure what we can do to dispute it without causing problems with management.

I've posted a reply but essentially this person is not paranoid. If you go around Phnom Penh, you will see little food stalls that have a single naked bulb lighting up their stall. The wire of that bulb is sometimes connected to a large electrical cable overhead. So somehow they have managed to tap into someone else's electricity by connecting a smaller wire to the larger cable.

It is not just Cambodians who do this extremely dangerous thing. In March, USA Today reported that more and more Americans have resorted to stealing electricity as the economic downturn continues.

"As the dismal economy spawns desperate measures, some Americans are resorting to a hazardous practice: stealing electricity.

Many utilities say energy theft has risen sharply during the economic downturn. Culprits include residential customers whose power is turned off when they fall behind on their bills and small businesses struggling to keep their doors open.

They're using a wide array of tactics. Some run wires from utility lines directly into a circuit-breaker panel, bypassing the electric meter. Others attach cables on either side of a meter, swipe meters from vacant houses when theirs are removed or tamper with meters to lower their electric bills.

"We're finding more and more people are … stealing electricity because of the poor economy," says John Hammerberg, investigations supervisor for Tampa Electric in Florida....

The practice is dangerous. Touching a power line can burn or even kill an untrained person. In Philadelphia this month, an illegal electricity hookup in a row house sparked a fire that killed a 30-year-old woman and her 8-year-old daughter."

When we first moved to our house in Siem Reap, we too had our suspicions, because our bills were for USD65 a month for the two of us compared with USD80 in Phnom Penh, where we had a cafe with 2 large fridges and the Bloom workshop with half a dozen motorised sewing machines. So I made the landlord check if someone was tapping into our electrical supply.

The best advice I can give is to anyone with this problem is to ask your landlord to install a meter or counter so you can see exactly how much you use. Not that this is full-proof: since installing a new meter after the old one broke in the Bloom shop at the Russian market, the counter jumps twice as fast. Of course this means I have to pay twice as much. We I have tried disputing with the electricity company staff who come to collect the money but it hasn't got us anywhere. It's so annoying when you know what is going on yet are not in position to do anything about it.

Monk Scam in Siem Reap

This post is to alert tourists of the fake monks walking about in the Old Market Area here in Siem Reap.

There are two of them now, dressed identically, in saffron coloured robes with matching bag. The older is pictured but there is a younger one. They are NOT Cambodian Monks. Cambodian monks do not wear these tunic like robes, rather, they wear robes that are wrapped around the body, with one end slung over a shoulder. These costumes are worn by Chinese, possibly Taiwanese, monks.

There used to be a woman in grey coloured robes, pretending to be a nun. She would always approach Alan, because he is white, and never me (the monks do the same). One day I confronted this woman, when she had the gall to follow us into the U-Care Pharmacy to pester Alan. I spoke to her in Mandarin, asking what she wanted. She replied in Mandarin, telling me about her lucky bookmark (which is what the thing she held up looked like). I asked her whether she is Chinese or Taiwanese and she said the latter. I then proceeded to tell her off: Why are you here trying to cheat tourists' of their money? Why don't you go home to Taiwan and cheat people at home?

She looked at me open-mouthed, and did not seem to know what to say. I walked away in disgust. The woman does not ply her trade her any longer, but the two Chinese monks do.

It is the same trick. They show you a gold card and say it is for luck. One day I heard a woman tourist tell the monk that she did not have USD20. USD20!! All he has to do is find a couple of mugs and he'd make over a thousand bucks a month (in a country where average wages are USD50 a month!).

I was so disgusted I immediately whipped out my camera and took these two photos. One day a customer told me she saw a tourist handing over USD20 to the monk. So there are actually people who fall for it. :(

Cambodians vulnerable to Internet scams

Yesterday I wondered how many Cambodians fall for Internet scams. In September, The Phnom Penh Post did a story on one such person. As increasing numbers of Khmers have bank accounts and email addresses, but not the exposure or education on Internet scams, some fall for the lure of easy money. Here is the report by the Post.

Radio Australia interviewed the same young woman, called "Amy" in its programme

The presenter noted: "A UK study in 2006 found that 150 thousand pounds a year was lost to these scams, with each victim losing an average of 31 thousand pounds." He must have his figures wrong, because this means only 5 people were scammed in the UK in that study.

A more accurate figure is £260 million, lost to fake foreign lotteries, as this report points out.

"On average a victim has a 30 per cent chance of falling for another scam within 12 months of first being caught out, most likely because their personal details are added to a so-called 'suckers list', which are then sold on to other scammers.

Whilst older consumers were more likely to be targeted by a scam, the highest percentage of victims were aged between 35-44 years. Of those who fell for the scams, 32 per cent said it was because of the legitimate and professional appearance of the marketing, 30 per cent said they were caught off guard, and 13 per cent because of the excitement at the prospect of getting a good deal or winning a prize.

In addition, the research showed that less than five per cent of those scammed reported their experience to the authorities."

I also found this interesting story on an Australian woman who allegedly asked to have stolen goods delivered to her home in Brisbane, before forwarding them to Cambodia. It seems the woman had an Internet relationship with a man in Cambodia whom she met on a dating website. But the report does not say if this person is Khmer or a foreigner residing in Cambodia.

Scam from South Africa

Since my current mission is to expose scams: I just received this in my email. The subject says "CASH DONATION! ! !" and the sender's name is OXFAM GB-UK. But look closely and you will notice this OXFAM GB-UK email came from psmith74@cox.net. And the contact person is from South Africa (domain name is .za).

Tuesday, December 2, 2008 4:37 PM
From: "OXFAM GB-UK" Add sender to Contacts
To: undisclosed-recipients
You been awarded £850,000 from the OXFAM GB -
UK cash/Promo Contact Dr.Terry Williams.
(terrywilliams15@jmail.co.za)
Qualification Number(OG/N231/E101/BDB)

I have also received emails saying I have been selected to go to an NGO course in the US with the usual payment required (all hotels and food covered! you just have to pay for your airfare!). I wonder how many Cambodians have received the same and how many actually fall for it.

We should all do what this guy did--he very cleverly turned the tables around and tricked a Nigerian con-man into getting a tattoo. Read the full story here.

Courier companies in Cambodia

As you know, Bloom sells bags all over the world, and we have to send our bags overseas frequently.

This is my experience with courier companies in Cambodia.

The first one I used was a big one, with the usual three letter name (why is it so many courier companies have three letter names?). Because it is so large and established, I almost accepted the quoted prices without question. I assumed that multinationals have standard rates and procedures.

But of course, having lived here long enough, I decided to ask for a discount. Incredibly, they said ok, and reduced prices by about 30% (!)

This delivery cost me over USD2000 and was delayed. First, it was Pchum Ben so Cambodian customs did not work, and customs said there was a backlog when they *did* return from their holiday. The boxes finally left Cambodia but took more than a week, instead of the three days I was promised, before my customer, Amnesty International, received the package. The explanation given was that the bags were held at customs at the other end.

Finally, 14 bags were missing when the customer counted the bags. I checked with the courier company which said they did an investigation and found no wrongdoing. They believed the mistake was on our part, that we had counted the bags wrongly.

The courier company only provides you with empty boxes, and you have to do all the packing yourself. In our case, this meant there were no witnesses as to how many bags were in the boxes. The result is that the company could disclaim responsibility, even though the package is supposed to be insured.

So, if you are sending packages overseas, make sure there is someone from the courier company who counts the items with you and signs off on the number of items in the packages.

Finally, when it came to paying the bill, I was asked to go to Phnom Penh to make the payment, even though there is a Siem Reap branch. When I asked why, I was told the Siem Reap branch is just a sales office, but all payment has to be made personally at the head office. I found it ridiculous.

After 2 weeks, when I did not go to Phnom Penh, an employee personally delivered the invoice to me at the Bloom shop here in Siem Reap, asking me to pay up--"urgent" was written on the invoice. And guess what? I would be able to pay in Siem Reap after all.

This employee then asked me if I would be doing a bank transfer, which he said would involve bank fees (not true if you transfer within the same bank, in our case, ANZ) or pay cash. When I told him I would deposit the cash into his company's bank account, he told me I could just pass him the cash, "more convenient for you", he said (yeah, rrrright). I bet he would have absconded with the money. My friends have had their driver disappear over $30.

Anyhow, because of the problems with courier company number one, I switched to a second, Cambodian run company which I had used previously with no problems. It too, has a three letter name.

This time, something happened when I was trying to pay the bill.

I went to the bank with the details provided by the employee of this courier company--the sales person in charge of the Bloom account, whom we shall call X. The ANZ bank teller told me X had given me a 6 digit number instead of an 8 digit one. Six digit numbers are for personal accounts and 8 digit ones for companies. So X had given me his personal bank details, expecting me to deposit the money into his personal bank account.

I called X up on his mobile and handed the phone over to the ANZ bank employee. The bank employee then asked X for his company's name and the company's bank account details, saying I had forgotten to bring the account information. He also asked X for the company's phone number.

He then called up the company and spoke with the boss who then proceeded to provide the company's bank account information. So I deposited the money into this account.

The bank employee told me such scams are very common and that is why the bank is alert to such things. If I simply filled in the deposit form without first explaining that it was payment to a company, the bank would have proceeded to process the deposit. Because I had used another company previously, I noticed the invoice provided by X on behalf this second company was very bare, lacking details such as the SWIFT code and bank account name, which is why I made sure I told the bank it was for a company, not for an individual.

You have to be on your guard all the time in Cambodia. Honestly, even with MNCs, you have to realise nothing is for certain and nothing is straightforward.

How cons work

I found this article on a Psychology Today blog relevant in the context of the orphanage and NGO scams here in Cambodia. (See Orphanages for non-orphans and Volunteer scams in Cambodia on this blog).

Paul J. Zak is a neuroeconomist and director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA, who writes a blog on the Moral Molecule--his lab in 2004 discovered a measurable and manipulable brain chemical called oxytocin that drives moral behaviour. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker calls the desire to help others, or avoid hurting them, our moral instinct. It is how we can live and work together, cooperating with complete strangers.

On his blog, Zak explains how he fell for a con when he was in high school. It all boils down to "THOMAS", The Human Oxytocin Mediated Attachment System.

He explains: "THOMAS is a powerful brain circuit that releases the neurochemical oxytocin when we are trusted and induces a desire to reciprocate the trust we have been shown--even with strangers.

The key to a con is not that you trust the conman, but that he shows he trusts you. Conmen ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable. Because of THOMAS, the human brain makes us feel good when we help others--this is the basis for attachment to family and friends and cooperation with strangers. "I need your help" is a potent stimulus for action."

Interestingly, Zak's lab has a term for these con-people: Bastards. Exactly the name I called them in this post: The dangers of volunteering in Cambodia. There really is no other word for these people, whom Zak likens to sociopaths.

So if you have been conned while volunteering in Cambodia, don't beat yourself over it. You were just acting on a natural stimulus. And Zak says only 2 per cent of people are bastards (why does it seem higher in SCambodia??).

He concludes: "THOMAS causes us to empathize with others, the key to building social relationships. Russian playwright Anton Chekov said 'You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.' I'd say that's about right-just watch for the occasional con."

"Baby Farms" in Nigeria

While on the topic of orphanages and adoptions....

World Breaking News Police raids reveal 'baby farms'

"The doctor in charge, who is now on trial, reportedly lured teenagers with unwanted pregnancies by offering to help with abortion.

They would be locked up there until they gave birth, whereupon they would be forced to give up their babies for a token fee of around 20,000 naira ($170).

The babies would then be sold to buyers for anything between 300,000 and 450,000 naira ($2500-$3800) each, according to a state agency fighting human trafficking in Nigeria, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP)."

Thanks to andrewinmelbourne via reddit.

Cambodia's ophanages for non-orphans

Thanks to Alison for pointing this out to me. A Nov 8 video by Aljazeera on a Cambodian orphanage where only five in 100 children there were actual orphans. This is typical of Cambodia--"orphanages" are centres that take in children from poor families who cannot afford to look after them. I don't think it is morally reprehensible to take in children who would otherwise be abandoned by their parents, but eyebrows were raised in this case because, among other things, the orphanage director featured apparently refused to have his accounts audited.

I once spoke to the Western director of one big orphanage who told me about a father bringing in his seven children to leave at the orphanage. When the director asked the Cambodian man why, he replied he found a new wife and he was planning to start a new family with her.

I know a Cambodian woman who grew up in an orphanage in Sihanoukville who was left there by her father when he remarried. She told me about the corruption in that orphanage. Then there was Chantou, our cook at Bloom cafe who lived in an NGO for children who told me about rice and stationery donated to the centre and then promptly sold by the NGO's director, an Asian woman who made enough money to retire to France.

When you live in Cambodia long enough, you will get to know Cambodians who were former drivers/helpers of missionaries and other NGO heads who now run their own NGOs or orphanages. It's just too easy. Why work when you can get donations?

And while we are on the subject, adoption facilitator Lauryn Galindo was so successful in her scam, two of her Cambodian staff members started their own adoption agencies. Galindo was sentenced to 18 months in prison in the US and ordered to forfeit the proceeds of her crime to the government in the form of her home in Hawaii worth $1.4 million, and the value of her Jaguar (approx $25,000). You can read the press release from the US Department of Justice here: jcics.org/Cambodia.

Galindo was also the facilitator for Angelina Jolie's baby. Incredibly, even as she was running "a scheme that treated hundreds of children as nothing more than commodities", to quote the US special agent-in-charge, Galindo saw herself as doing humanitarian work, as she told Cambodia Daily reporter Richard Sine way back in 2002.

The Dangers of Volunteering in Cambodia

Photo credit: Royal Dutch Shell scam
Can volunteer scams get any worse than this? A day after I wrote about the bad experiences of travellers who come to this country to help Cambodians, another young woman told me about her encounters.

This young lady has been working 14 hours a day helping this orphanage, run by a Cambodian man, whose entire family lives at the orphanage. The first time we met she gushed about the orphanage. I was sceptical, and asked her if she knew the orphanage was legit, but she seemed so sure. She said the main reason she was impressed was that the kids looked well-fed and happy.

Less than 2 weeks later, she found out the truth. The first thing that happened was money was stolen out of her bag which she had left in the staff room. Later, on the very same day, she was asked if she would like a locker to keep her bag. She took the locker and the next day, more money went missing--someone had broken into the locker and stolen her cash. She was basically set up by the thief.

Things came to a head when she was asked to sign up for a full-time volunteer position, because she is so damn good at promoting the orphanage. She gives speeches to visitors who come watch the children at the orphanage perform their dance routine every single night of the week. You can imagine the impact of having a Westerner give a nightly testimonial to foreign visitors--one guy donated 1,000 euros on the spot. [I hesitate to write this because I know it will encourage some people to start orphanages or NGOs of their own because it is such easy pickings.]

She said she'd be happy to work there for free on a longer-term basis, but would like to mention a couple of things. One is that she would like for the children to perform only 3 times a week, instead of nightly. This is because the kids are exhausted and they have to practice every single day and they end up falling asleep during their English lessons with her. [Honestly, how are such orphanage managers who make the orphans perform every single night for their supper different from parents who force their children to sell books or beg on the streets for money, leaving them with little time and energy for school?]

The other thing she mentioned was the missing money. She did not realise at the time the management by now had decided she was trouble and had to go.

When she checked her email account from the office computer one day, a staff member told her a child was crying for her and she had to go immediately to see what was wrong with the child. She left the computer and rushed to the child.

When she returned, she found the computer was now password-protected and she could not get back in. The staff refused to give her access to the computer, saying while she was away with the child, an Irish donor had called up asking them to password protect their PCs. So now, the orphanage had access to her email account, which she had left open when she left to attend the child. Presumably, they were trying to see if she had alerted anyone of her suspicions, and possibly to use such "incriminating" emails as evidence that she should be kicked out. Fortunately, this young lady has always only said good things about the place in her emails to friends and family.

The next thing she knew, she heard from another volunteer. The management had told some other Western volunteers that this young woman had stolen money from the orphanage and had been bad-mouthing the place. They said they were going to call the police and have her deported from Cambodia.

Imagine how upsetting and scary this is for a foreigner and first time visitor to this country. I am furious, furious! with these bastards. These young people, all in their twenties, come here full of hope and idealism and want to help people less fortunate than themselves, only to get intimidated and threatened and cheated out of their savings. Imagine the impact it has on these people. I would not be surprised if many of them decide to screw it and never help another less fortunate person again.

Volunteer Scams in Cambodia

I have decided to write about the scam volunteer project after enough customers have told me about their bad experiences. The last one was a young woman in her early 20s from Canada who paid, get this, USD6000 (!) for a 6 weeks volunteer programme with an organisation here in Siem Reap.

[I want to name names but I am afraid of being murdered. It's not a joke. You can hire a hit man for USD100 (or so I was told, I did not enquire personally!) and when you are in the way of thousands of dollars, you can bet that it makes financial sense for a crook to pay a hundred bucks to get you out of the way.]

Anyway, so this poor woman found this organisation via a "Volunteer abroad!" website. There are many out there and I am writing this as a cautionary note for other travellers. There are too many entrepreneurs who set up NGOs, orphanages and the like in Cambodia, preying on the kindness and generosity of travellers who feel for this country and want to contribute.

In the case of this woman, the USD6000, which works out to USD1000 a week, was to cover all her living and food expenses. She arrived in Siem Reap to be put up in a room in the NGO house, where six other Cambodian men lived. She told me every evening the men would be drinking and gambling or watching TV. She felt so unsafe, she left after a week. She then checked into a hotel but had to cut short her trip as she had spent almost all her money after paying for the volunteer programme.

This other Canadian woman found an NGO while she was holidaying here in Siem Reap. She saw a notice in one of the more established cafes here and decided to join this particular NGO. Upon arrival, she was asked to pay USD50 as an "administrative fee". She was also asked to stay at the guesthouse run by the NGO and to use the tuk-tuk provided by the NGO.

This meant she would have to move from her USD5 a night guesthouse to a USD10 one, and she would have to pay USD12 every time she used the tuk-tuk. The NGO was out of town but this young woman decided she could cycle there instead of spending USD12 per trip. When she suggested this, she was told she could pay a cheaper price for the tuk-tuk. "Well, why wasn't I told this before I mentioned biking here?" she asked. Good question. Another good question is where did the USD50 admin fee go to?

USD50 is what your typical waitress in a restaurant gets for working 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, so you know USD50 can go some way in this country. All the NGO referred to here needs is 2 innocent victims a day and they bring in USD3000 a month. This excludes the money they get from their other revenue streams, like the guesthouse and restaurant.

As I have written many time, corruption in this country taints everything. The rule of law does not mean much here because the salaries of government officials here are pitiful (to give you an idea, a senior member of staff at the Foreign Affairs Ministry told me in 2006 that his monthly salary was USD40). So policemen and other men in uniform need to find other ways to make money.

It is a sad thing when innocent young people who want to help this country get fleeced and go away disappointed and betrayed.

I used to be upset with these people, whom I variously labelled as "dumb", "lazy" or "irresponsible", for not doing their homework, for not doing due diligence. I thought they should have exercised better judgement. But having met a number of such travellers now, I feel sorry for them. And I recognise how difficult it is to know the truth when you do not live here. For how many people have the time to investigate or even know where to begin to investigate?

I also think many young people are idealistic and want to believe in the good of people, which is why they easily believe when others tell them about the supposedly good work they are doing. Sadly there will always be bad people who will exploit this innocence and naivete.

So if you are planning to volunteer in Cambodia, please be aware that exploitation works both ways: it is not always the richer person who exploits the poorer ones; sometimes it can be the other way around.

Bus/Taxi from Bangkok to Siem Reap

I've finally got around to writing about my trip back from Bangkok to Siem Reap. I had gone to Bangkok with my mother and we carried Bloom bags over to meet with a customer from LA, actually from Hollywood. My customer is associated with the movie "Shanghai" which stars John Cusack, Gong Li, Chow Yuen Fatt and Ken Watanabe. The movie moved location to Thailand after the Chinese government refused to give permit to film in China because of concerns over the script.

In Bangkok we stayed in Pannee Lodge guesthouse on Khao San Road for 1350 baht (USD40) for a double room. It was expensive--you can get much better deals if you shop online before your visit. If you don't, you'd be like me--I was exhausted and just wanted a clean place to lie down after a nine-hour trip from Siem Reap. (See "Taxi/Bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok" on this blog.)

Anyway, we stayed in Bangkok for five days and I almost booked a bus from one of the travel agents in Khao San Road, despite everything I had read about dodgy agents in Bangkok. This guy offered us 500baht (USD14.50) per person for a direct bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap. I was tempted because I had paid 300 baht (the right price is 200baht) for the bus from Aranyaprathet to Bangkok and another USD35 for a taxi from Poipet to Siem Reap, and all I was thinking was how much money I would save!

Fortunately common sense prevailed and I said no, we'd make the trip without an agent. I found out from the Internet that the bus to Siem Reap leaves Morchit Bus Terminal, which is near the Chatuchak Weekend Market. We left the guesthouse about 8am after breakfast and flagged down a taxi. The taxi driver was quite reckless and I was convinced we would get into an accident--we did. Fortunately the accident took place just outside the bus station so mom and I paid the driver, hopped off with our bags, and left the two men arguing as to who was in the wrong (it was our guy).

There are ticket booths all over the station, outside and inside. We made the mistake of approaching one on the outside, but the nice lady told us to look for booth number 25 inside the terminal.

We went in and found number 25. I actually stood in line while trying to confirm with the other people in the queue if it was the right bus. As usual, nobody could speak English and I did not get very far. Fortunately, my anxiety led a Thai woman in uniform (she was some sort of usher who helps people in the station) to approach me. She told me we were in the wrong queue and to move to the next one. It was only later when I approached the window that I could see a handwritten sign saying "Bangkok-Ongkharak-Aranyaprathet: 9:30".

The ticket cost 236 baht (USD6.86) and said "premium" on it. It also showed the bay number, 116 (see pic1) . The bus bays are just behind the rows of ticket booths and it was not difficult to find ours. The bus looks exactly like the one in the photo (pic2). It does not look like much, but the seats were clean and spacious. In fact we were very happy with our seats. We were also given a snack box, which contained a thick slice of bread with some kind of butter-like spread and a small sealed cup of distilled water. There was also a wet tissue and a packet of instant coffee and sugar, but no hot water. Is the coffee supposed to go with the lukewarm water? I didn't want to try out.


There was a telly on the bus playing a Thai-dubbed Japanese show which thankfully they turned off before we started moving. I also took a photo of the bus times which were displayed on the bus.


Soon after we left the bus terminal, the bus started picking up Thai passengers who stood all the way. Obviously this is no express bus, but I've read that this is typical of the buses going to Aranyaprathet. They fill up the bus seats and then pick up and drop off more passengers from various points. There is no bell, so the passengers simply call out to the driver. It was not much of a bother except like bus passengers everywhere, people tend to crowd in the front instead of moving towards the back. As a result, me and mom, seated up front, had some unpleasant whiffs of body odour.

As with the bus ride up, the bus stopped for uniformed policemen who boarded the bus to check our passports. A couple of men got off the bus at this point--I am not sure why though. Perhaps they were illegals?

The bus did not stop for a toilet break but there is a toilet on board. After 5 hours, we finally arrived at Aranyaprathet. From the bus station, you will have to take a tuk tuk--the border is simply too far away (6km). We hopped on one and another group of Europeans we met at the station hopped on another. The drivers agreed to USD1 per tuk tuk (but I eventually paid USD 2, because it was quite a distance he took us).

The tuk tuks then took us to a building with the sign "Immigration Department" or some such thing. The drivers insisted we had to get visas here before arriving at the border. I told our driver that Singaporeans do not need visas and that was when both drivers turned their attention to the Europeans, trying to convince them they had to get their visas here.

We kept saying "no need, no need" and after about 5-10mins, they finally gave up and continued on to the border. They then dropped up off about 1km away from the checkpoint, where another scam laid in wait.

This time the tuk tuk drivers dropped us in front of a little shack with a round stone table and stone seats. We were told by men who were wearing tags in an effort to look officious to fill up departure and arrival forms there. Because the men were Cambodian, I easily started a conversation with them and they let me sit and fill up the forms. By now, the Europeans were savvy, and said no thanks and proceeded to the checkpoint.

As for me, while filling in the forms, the men told me they could help me get a taxi from Poipet to Siem Reap. One of them insisted the price was USD60. I said, how can that be? I paid only USD35 from Siem Reap to Poipet. He said it is because of the police, who demand tax from the taxi drivers. I said no, the taxi is only USD40 (a French customer had told me this was the amount she had paid) . This guy then said, yes, before it was USD40, but now, it is USD60 "because of the fucking police," he spat. He said it with such conviction I almost believed him.

There was another younger man, a boy, really, who was listening to all this and who kept saying, "It is ok bong-srei (elder sister), you can take a taxi from the other side" (once you get across from the checkpoint is what he means). When I said I would take the taxi if it is USD40, the first guy told me to hold on while he calls his boss. While waiting for his boss to decide, this guy proudly showed off his gold bracelet, worth USD200. I decided he must make good money scamming tourists.

In any case, his boss said no go. When I had walked away, the guy actually drove his motorcycle up to me and tried to bargain one last time. "50 dollars ok, bong-srei?"

Of course I said no and continued walking. I was just amazed--they must make such good money from the scam they would even turn away a fair price for one of their taxis.

While walking towards the checkpoint many other taxi touts came up to us. I was so annoyed by then I said loudly in Khmer, "I always thought Cambodians were honest (smao trong), but you're not. I live in Cambodia, helping Khmers and yet you still try to cheat me." I was really quite pissed off. Anyway, two of the men seemed shocked and one said in Khmer, no, no, we will charge you a fair price, USD40 for the whole taxi. It was the price I was willing to pay all along so I agreed and they helped mom and I with our bags.

When you get to immigration, another scam--we were asked to show our passports to two men in uniform sitting at a table on the side of the queue to the immigration counter. They flipped open our passports and said we needed departure and arrival cards and that they would fill it in for us for 100 baht (USD2.90) each. I said no and they didn't pursue the matter. You get the feeling everyone is just trying their luck and if it doesn't work off, they shrug it off.

At the immigration counter where we get the passports stamped, another officer tried to scam my mother. As she was on a tourist visa which was expiring soon, the officer told her she needed to pay for a new one. My mom told him she would be leaving Cambodia before the visa expires so don't worry about it.

Finally, we were able to walk out of the whole nightmare towards the taxi (which is really a private car, a Toyota Camry). The drive back was uneventful except for two things:

1. The driver's cellphone kept ringing and a couple of times he impatiently told his caller in Cambodian that he has a customer ("p'new") who understands Cambodian ("cheh Khmer") so could not talk now. He was referring to me, obviously. I kept wondering what he had to hide; have I been scammed?

2. The driver stopped at a little provision store for us to use the toilet. Just 10 minutes before stopping at this little shop there was a large stop with toilet signs. I think that was a free toilet but the driver insisted on stopping at the shop where they charged 500riels (12.5 cents US) or 5baht (14 cents US) for the use of the toilet. We noticed other taxis had also stopped and some customers bought drinks and potato crisps. For their cooperation, the taxi drivers received a free car wash--at least that was all I saw.

After 3.5 hours we arrived safely home. I hope this has been useful for those of you planning the trip. Just keep your wits about you and know that practically everyone on route will be involved in trying to milk gullible tourists and first time travellers.

Crooked "Customers", Copycats and Culture

So I get a call the other day from a tuk-tuk driver asking me where my house is because his customer wants to know. Obviously there's a miscommunication. He puts me on the phone with his customer, a French bloke who then asks me where the Bloom shop in the Russian Market (in Phnom Penh) is. They're at the market but cannot find it (unsurprising because the market is a maze). So he puts me back on the phone to speak with his tuk-tuk driver cos he can't speak English well or any Khmer and the driver cannot understand him.

Fine, I give the necessary directions (its shop number 808, and near the food market, where the "famous ice-coffee" shops are, in case you are looking too). I even called the tuk-tuk guy back to ensure they did find the shop.

Then when I was down in Phnom Penh 2 weeks ago, our shop assistant tells me about this "French man who talk like girl-girl" who told her he had arrived from Siem Reap where he had also visited the Bloom shop. He went specially to our Phnom Penh shop, not because he was looking for designs not carried in our Siem Reap shop, but for more sinister intentions.

He told Sok Yee he would pay her money and buy two bags (if she gives him a discount of course) if Sok Yee would tell him where the women work (he wants to see more designs, he says) and if she puts him in touch with the women. Turns out he wanted to bypass Bloom and hire the women to copy our bags for him. Sok Yee was on to him, because it is not the first time it has happened. In fact, that was what sacked Bloom manager Sipha did, taking customer orders and instead of letting the Bloom team know, she would sew the bags herself and outsource to other sewers and keep all the money. The reason she was able to was because the previous shopgirl was in cahoots with her and would pass her (instead of me) customer requests.

Thankfully Sok Yee is honest and told him that all the stock is in the shop and with Diana and suggested he speak with me. The effeminate French man then said, "I don't want to buy from Diana. She sells expensive." Damn right I sell "expensive" - the term a selfish git like him would use for our prices - other people use the word "FAIR". Bloom's prices are higher than the typical market stall because as I take pains to explain all the time, Bloom has fixed costs such as good salaries (and holidays and bonuses), rent for the workshop, utilities, etc etc that these market stalls do not have. They pay women sewers piece rate, so are able to price their bags cheaply (their cost is the material cost plus labour, which can range from as little as USD0.10 to USD3 a bag, depending on size). Bloom cannot. (Read "Business Competition in Cambodia" in this blog for more).

I say clearly on the blog if you want a bargain bag, don't come to us. If you feel you cannot afford to pay a fair price, then go elsewhere. Cambodia is full of exploitative shops and factories. You will not have to look hard to find your cheap bag. Honestly, I am not interested in selling to people who have disdain for a person's right to fair wages. If you want to save your money so bloody much, go to China or Indonesia. I guarantee you will be able to buy armloads of cheap bags, all churned out by young people who leave their hometowns in search for jobs to feed themselves and their families and end up working as virtual slaves, earning USD45 for an entire MONTH! How much do you think the French man earns? The same guy who wants to build a business copying other people's products and paying the workers pittance to do the job while maximising profits for himself?

I am furious just typing this. The Bloom team and me have worked hard (for two years!) to build our reputation for quality bags and we work hard to try to survive in a place where we compete head on with dubious NGOs and capitalistic businesses (like this guy imagines he will set up), without compromising our commitment to justice and fairness for workers and our commitment to quality and fair prices for customers. (It should be known that there are shops on Phnom Penh's posh St 240 and elsewhere that charge double what we do for similar, if not identical, bags. The whole point about Bloom is to MAKE TRADE FAIR (apologies to OXFAM)- this means FAIR WAGES to workers and FAIR PRICES to customers).

I hate cowards like this girly French man. You want to copy our bags and outsource to other sewers? Fine, pay the right price for the Bloom bag and take the bag to your own people. Go find sewers to copy the designs - they are everywhere. You don't have to limit yourself to the Bloom team. In fact, the Bloom manager I sacked, Un Sipha, has set up her own shop and workshop to take on orders from people like this French guy - people who want to pay cheap and get the exact same bags as Bloom. That's right. The sacked manager, whom I taught everything, has started her own copycat business, even housing her shop at our former shop at the Russian Market, stocked with all our designs. (A British friend living in Phnom Penh alerted me to the shop and I laughed when I heard she tells people she was the former designer at Bloom--most of our designs are adapted from bags I own from Singapore, such as the grocery shopper and messenger and gym bags. She was not much of a designer, but hell of a copier).

As I have said before, I don't mind copycats. I find it rather amusing, maybe because I do believe Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In fact, some days I think if Sipha who had nothing when I met her 2 years ago is now able to become a businesswomen, then it is a measure of success on my part. From the beginning I had told Sipha about the aim for Bloom to be a workers' cooperative so she and the other women would own, manage and grow the business. I shared with her everything about running Bloom, because I believed she would be one of the team leaders in the cooperative.

Thinking back, there were signs she was not the right one to lead the team, because she was constantly telling me we should not tell the other women how much it costs to make per bag, and especially, how much we sell them for. The women, including Sipha, who all trained at Hagar, had no idea how much the bags they were making were selling for at Hagar--all they knew was theirs (and each others!) wages.

And Sipha thought this was the way it should be - managers should be privy to certain information and workers should be kept in the dark. If they know too much, they will have ambitions or demand more. Turns out, Sipha thought like this because it takes one to know one. If was Sipha who was harbouring ambitions. [But that is not wrong itself. People with initiative think about starting their own business all the time. That was the case for me. Why should Cambodians be any different? What she did wrong was to have stolen money from me. If not for the fact she stole goodness knows how much from me and the Bloom team, Sipha would have my blessings and even assistance. Now I treat her like I never laid eyes on her.]

To me, the more workers know about the business, the better. This means they would feel a sense of ownership and a clear idea of where the business is headed. I have always managed like this, something I had learned from my very first Australian bosses. In Singapore, when I eventually ran the company, we would have monthly meetings where I would share the budget with staff, meaning what we projected for the month and the year, how we did in actual fact and the reasons why, and how we are going to get to what we projected. Staff appreciated this and the more I shared, the more I felt staff wanted to work hard for our common goal.

Sharing business information is even more important at Bloom, because if I intend to hand the business over to the Cambodian team, they need to know as much as possible. That is why I have always told Sipha I do not like secrets and insisted she shared information with the staff. One problem - and this is a lesson for expats - is because I was not so confident with my Khmer, I spoke only to Sipha, expecting her to convey the information to the team. Of course she didn't. The lesson is always talk directly to ALL your staff, don't trust your manager, or indeed, translator, to convey everything for you.

Back then, my conversations with Sipha often left me pondering about the hierarchical nature of Khmer society--why the higher ups would talk down to workers and why they would throw their weight around. Even dressing was used as a tool to establish status. Khmers are always telling me to dress better to show I am the boss, to not ask questions, but just tell staff what to do, to order, not discuss. My style has always been to ask questions and build consensus, because as I always tell the team, everyone has ideas, not just the managers. I often wonder if I'm knocking against a brick wall--how do I expect the team to appreciate what I am trying to do, how can they work in cooperation as a team, with respect for each other, if all they know is to either to order or be ordered around? I also think they do not trust me because they have had lousy bosses who may have promised them the world and then abandoned them. How can I show I mean what I say?

Frankly I am still not sure if the cooperative is a pipe dream. I worry Bloom will fall apart the day I leave the country and leave Bloom in the hands of our Cambodian team. All I know for sure is I will keep trying, to show them by actions, that I believe in them, that they are capable of caring for one another, that they are capable of making Bloom work on their own. One thing I am doing now is to tie the workshop (production) with the Russian Market shop (sales). I have told them that if the shop makes money, they will share all the profits. Hopefully that way they learn more about business, instead of just wanting to complete their sewing, without understanding what sells and what doesn't. I want the women to learn what customers want and listen and come up with ideas for improving the business. Like I said, I don't know if it is a pipe dream, but I want to try to make it work.

Taxi/Bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok

Update [24.06.2009]: A few readers have told me the road from Siem Reap to Poipet is almost all paved, which makes the journey shorter. I checked with a travel agent next to the Bloom shop here in Siem Reap, and she says the journey has been cut by 2 hours, if you are taking a bus all the way. It now takes 8 hours compared with 10 previously - 3 hours from Siem Reap to Poipet and 5 hours from Aranyaprathet to Bangkok (including the border crossing). The cheapest bus ticket I've found costs USD7.50 and will take you right to Khao San Road. You will need to change buses once, after you've crossed the border. In Siem Reap, you will be taking a bus which will pick you up from your guesthouse if you book with a travel agent, but the bus you change to may turn out to be a mini-van, depending on the number of people who go on to Bangkok (many people, Cambodians especially just take the bus to the border).

Right, as promised I will tell readers about how I travelled by land from Siem Reap to Bangkok. Before embarking on the trip I tried searching the Internet for advice and found that most shared advice on going from Bangkok to Siem Reap, but few write about the trip in the other direction. So here goes:

Cambodia and Thailand share a border. The Cambodian side of the border is called Poipet and the Thai side is called Aranyaprathet.

From Siem Reap, you can either take a bus or a taxi to Poipet. I booked a taxi for USD30 and for that you get the whole car to yourself (a Toyota Camry with air-con which is necessary because the road can get very dusty). I booked the taxi through a travel agent but asked the driver how much was his cut and he said USD25, so presumably you can pay USD25 if you know a taxi driver and bypass the agent.

It took us a little over 3 hours to get to Poipet. The roads are not as bad as we had been told. It was a bit bumpy in the beginning for about an 1 hour but it was fine further on. The roads are mostly like this--red and dusty but you will come across stretches of concrete roads. Really, it is not that bad. You will come across many detour signs -- it seems the Cambodians are building small bridges everywhere, for what purpose I do not know. I was told by the taxi driver that the Cambodian government will be improving the road (rumour has it a Thai airline company has been paying the Cambodian government to keep the roads bad so more people will choose to fly). You will also see electricity poles and about 2 hours into the trip, you will see a number of houses that carve large buddhas from stone.






The taxi does not take you up to the border, only to a roundabout from where you can walk to the Cambodian Immigration booth to get your passport stamped. As soon as you alight from the taxi, you will be approached by young men pushing large wheelbarrows. These guys will offer to take your luggage for you to the border. I did not use their services because our bags were manageable, but I think they were just trying to earn a living. So if you cannot be bothered to lug your bags, you can consider paying one of them USD1 to help you (they'll take your bags right up to the border).

It is a 2 min walk to getting your passports stamped. It is on the right side of the road--you will not miss the immigration office, so don't worry. We left at 6:30am and arrived before 10am, so there was hardly any one in the queue.

After you get your passport stamped, it is still a long walk over to the Thai side. Just keep walking straight ahead for about 15mins. Along the way you will pass by a couple of large casinos and even though you are still on Cambodian soil, the roadside stalls and cafe all charge baht. There is an ANZ teller along the way and I took out some USD to change into baht.

Then you keep left to go to the Thai immigration room. Remember to fill in a departure card--both sides--before getting your passport stamped by very grumpy Thai officers. I have to say the woman Thai immigration officer is the rudest one I have encountered in the dozens of cities I have been (except for an Aussie man who asked me the most offensive questions like, "so Diana what will you do if you meet a nice Australian man?" way back in 1990 when I was still a teenager travelling to Australia for a holiday with a friend.)

The Thai woman official would not speak to me and would not lend me a pen to fill in the back part of the departure card. Her disdain conveyed that Thais don't care much for foreigners or for the English language.

Once you cross the border comes the tricky part. Forget about finding bus companies nearby. What you will find is a little village of small shops selling drinks, food, clothes etc. The first thing to do if you have not already changed baht is to get some. I could not find a money changer so I took cash from a machine from a bank which is on your right.

Mom sat down at one coffee shop while I went to look for the bus that will take us from Aranyaprathet to Bangkok. I turned left and down a slope and came to a large bus depot. There were many people waiting for buses, but one thing about Thailand--very, very few people speak English. It comes as a surprise coming from Cambodia, especially Siem Reap, where many locals speak English.

Anyway, I approached what looked liked the bus "office" (on the right). You will see staff in uniforms, but no one could speak English. The staff approached a Thai woman who spoke English, who then told me to go back up the slope to a bus company and asked that I buy tickets from there. She said the buses at the depot are for locals; tourists take the bus from that company.

Then she motioned for me to get on a little tram-like vehicle which provides free transport around the area. We hopped on and went back up the slope to where the company was (I forget the name but there is only one there--and it is really a travel agent that is set up to look like a ticket booth). There are 2 buses you can take. One takes you to Khao San Road while the other takes you to a bus station in Bangkok. The tickets cost 250 baht for the Khao San bus and 300 baht (USD9) to the bus station. The Khao San bus would leave at 1.30pm so I took the other, which was leaving at 11am. I was told that a staff member would take me to the bus.

He did--he brought me and mom back to the same bus depot where we boarded a double-storey bus. Unlike Cambodia, you do not get tags for leaving your luggage in the compartment under the carriage, but that turned out not to be a problem. The bottom storey of the bus does not have 2-seater seats, only a lounge-like room, which had a U-shaped seat around a small table and a couple of double seats. We were told to sit with a bunch of strangers on the U-shaped chair. I wasn't very pleased for the lack of privacy but it turned out ok and the Thai people (we were the only foreigners on the bus) were friendly.

Just before we took off, a woman came over collecting money. She asked me for 200 baht. I asked why? It turns out you can buy tickets on board the bus. And they are only 200 baht each; not 300.

The bus has a toilet and stopped once during the 5 hour trip. Thailand is obviously a rich country: roads are huge and paved and along the way you will see huge car showrooms. The bus stopped at a petrol station that had many hawkers selling fruit, fried bananas and sweet potatoes and there was even a 7-eleven.

Once you get to Bangkok, don't panic. Bangkok is a large city and if it looks industrial, do not worry. Eventually the bus will take you into the heart of the tourist areas near Sukhumvit and Rama IV roads. We got down at one stop and took a taxi to Sukhumvit cos that is the only place I could remember (where the 4-faced Buddha is located). We ended up at the Central shopping mall which was lucky, because there was a large outdoor exhibition on the environment worth seeing.

We then decided to go to Khao San for cheap accomodation. It was already after 5pm so traffic was a killer and taxis would only take us there for USD10. Many taxis in Bangkok refuse to use the meter, but be patient and you will eventually be able to find one that does. We were tired so when a tuk tuk offered to take us for 150 baht (about USD5), I said ok. Later on we took a metered taxi to the same place and it cost us only 80 baht, if that.

That's it. I'll write about the trip home and the (other) hucksters I encountered.