Let’s talk through a hypothetical. You see me—a dashing 24 year old walking through customs at the airport in Cambodia. I am wearing a long sleeve dress shirt and slacks with some nice-ish shoes. That probably is not the most common thing in an airport full of backpackers and the occasional businessman. But that look I was going for probably would not scream at you, “Haha! Look at me all you bastards! I’m made of money! I’m a dollar bill with legs!”
Unfortunately for me, that was the exact look I seemed to give to a customs guy. He asked me to open up my bags after the security check and then asked, “How much money do you have on you.” I thought for a second and told him, “About $50 or $60 and a bunch of Thai Baht.” He looked at me in disbelief and basically said no no no I want to see inside your bags, you have more than that (they did not want to search my bags in public). I was taken aback.
When he still didn’t believe me he decided I needed to come to the back customs office. Now I was pretty nervous at this point. I was alone with 2-3 customs officers in a back office out of view of the rest of the passengers in a country known for corruption and one of them was sure I had some big bucks on me. I was worried they would demand bribes…among other things.
Well they had me place my bag on a desk and open it to show them all my cash. “You have $15,000 in here.” I slowly and firmly said, “No, I have about $50,” and instead showed them all my sales sample books (trying to play dumb) and telling them, “Oh, you probably saw this on the X-Ray machine.” They rolled their eyes and demanded to see the money again. So I made a show of showing them the one $50 bill I had. It was hidden in my pair of packed shoes and covered with socks (always break up your money in separate locations when you travel).
You should have seen their faces.
Someone who hides money in their shoes is not a walking dollar bill. They asked again about the money, but this time with less self-assurance. It was at that point I realized they no longer had the advantage. I perked up and said, “Oh! I have a $20 bill in my other shoe, do you want to see that?” They really didn’t say anything so instead I opened my other bag pulled out a passport holder I use for money and said, “Here I also have Thai Baht and some Taiwan dollars.” At this point reality, punched them in the face. They realized I truly was not made of money—although they tried to hide the disappointment. To screw with them some more and drive the point home I pulled out the roll of cash in my pocket, “Here are some Riels I have too (the Cambodian currency which are given out as change for cents since all prices in Cambodia are in dollars, the roll I pulled out was worth all of $0.75).”
They thanked me for my time and apologized for the trouble. The guy who called me in then informed me it was illegal to take over $10,000 out of or into Cambodia. I looked at him again, laughed, and said, “I don’t even think I have that much in my bank account in Taiwan. How could I take that out of Cambodia?” His response was to apologize again and show me to the door.
It could have been much much worse—instead it is pretty funny.
I have no idea why I was picked out for this. All I can guess is that they assumed that being young and nicely dressed meant I was carrying a lot of money and I was also naive. But the fact that I was carrying so little (I never have much on me by the time I leave Cambodia) made it almost impossible for them to demand anything from me. Lesson learned
Temple at night
