One Night In Poipet

By Richard Cranor

A backpacker recounts a harrowing encounter with human traffickers in a remote Cambodian border town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Cranor
• Release date: Nov 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516358175

Book preview

PREFACE

In 2010, I set off on a journey to Thailand and eventually, Cambodia. I had just survived a recent bout of Stage 3 Testicular Cancer and a divorce, not to mention a job loss and a whole host of other life situations that had me on the ropes. I thought a journey to some remote part of the earth might be just what the doctor ordered, despite the fact that I was absolutely sick of doctors.

I took what little money I had and left. Within a few short weeks, I would find myself faced with a situation very few people ever escape from. In fact, I still think about how close I came to disappearing forever. What makes me both sad and somber is how easily evil comes to those least suspecting it – and how evil can easily convince so many to do such horrible things to each other.

I hope this book will awaken the reader into understanding evil is alive and well on this planet. I’m not sure how to stop it, but I know pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t help either. The luxury of sipping your latte at a fancy cafe can lull you into a false sense of security. We are living charmed lives in the west. There is a world out there – far away from the comforting smooth jazz playing in the local Starbucks – that will absolutely destroy you.  And it is closer than you think.

There is beauty too in the world, even in places like Cambodia. Those who don’t peddle in human flesh can be quite wonderful. This isn’t an indictment of one group of people or culture.

But make no mistake – the world still has its monsters, and your latte will not always be there to save you.

Sip.

POIPET, ORIENTAL SETTING

Your kidnapping may begin with a smile, a kindness, a helpful courtesy. You may even welcome it with open arms and an open wallet. But it won't be long before that uneasy feeling sets in – the one that warned you from the beginning of trouble – that wonderful, hard-won evolutionary survival instinct all your years of social conditioning politely extinguished long ago.

We need you to share a taxi with undocumented female workers. They’ll share a cab with you – you being white will help them move faster across the border. As soon as I heard the term Undocumented Female Worker, I knew my world backpacking tour had just come to an abrupt and dangerous end. The only thing that really kept me from completely freaking out was my fixation on his strange and ridiculous Australian accent. And I do mean ridiculous. I'm talking Crocodile Dundee ridiculous. I'd never heard anything like it, and I've watched Crocodile Dundee on VHS well over fifty times. I caught myself turning my head to look at him in disbelief, my jaw dropping in slow motion.

My only guess was that Cambodia is close enough to Australia for improvised English lessons via the telly. Either that or Paul Hogan was his English teacher. I think it was then that it first began to dawn on me how screwed I really was. Strange Aussie accents aside, what the hell were Cambodians doing this side of the Thai border to begin with?

I'd seen enough movies to know what a Cambodian looks like. That Khmer head scarf is a dead giveaway. He wore it around his neck loosely, the way a pompous Ivy-leaguer would wear his sweater while swinging a racket. But I doubt this guy ever once opened a Hemingway novel or was late to badminton practice. It was obvious his brand of criminal education came from a life lived in Cambodia's infamous Killing Fields, which were apparently still open for business.

It helped that my ex-wife was Vietnamese. I'd gleaned from my marriage to her some experience in differentiating between the various Asian races, as well as an education in just how racist Asians can be to each other. [Europeans and Americans don't hold the monopoly on prejudice – it's true.]  I remember how her mother always talked shit about Cambodians, how she used to cover her face from the sun to avoid getting dark and looking like a Nguoi Kampuchea. Some of my more racially-biased brethren in the South would be impressed with that kind of dedication to racial purity, though they never did seem to mind the Alabama sun supposedly burning ethnic inferiority into their own skin. But then again, they couldn't always afford shirts.

Some words came out of my mouth.

I refuse to share a taxi with anyone I don't know.

Kind of ballsy considering the guys I were talking to were most likely descendants of the Khmer Rouge. They actually might still be Khmer Rouge.

Truth be told, I've only got one ball, thanks to a stint with testicular cancer a year earlier. Still, there we were, me and my lone testicle making a defiant stand. I had read in medical books that the surviving testicle often grows in size to make up for his brother’s absence in the sack. Personally, I hadn’t noticed any change in size.

But in that moment, I swear I could feel it swelling. I needed every ounce of testosterone I could get. Because deep down I knew what he really meant by Undocumented Female Workers. They were SEX SLAVES. And I was to join them for a ride.

It began to dawn on me I was with the Cambodian Mafia at a fake border crossing. They had tricked me into taking a Tuk-Tuk with them and now there I was, alone in a remote Cambodian jungle location I couldn't for the life of me ever find on a map again. I tried to track every word, every subtle body movement, shift of a shifty eye. I couldn’t afford to lose anything in translation.

At any rate, even if did agree to ride with these not-so-merry-maids this late in the evening, chances are we weren't going on a Sunday drive to Angkor Wat.  The guys grilling me were the likely descendants of the very same people who killed over three million of their own citizens just because they wore reading glasses or had high school diplomas. Half the time they didn't even shoot them, they’d just hit them over the head with