“It was not until the plane landed at Phnom Penh International Airport that my heart completely fell” – Fang Nan
I decided to go back to Cambodia after more than a year of absence, even though Cambodia is currently experiencing an outbreak of the disease, with hundreds of new cases being diagnosed every day. I finished my 2 vaccinations in China early and left from Chengdu airport on May 5, full of expectation to go to Cambodia, but to my surprise, this trip to Cambodia was not as easy as usual.
On one hand, due to the massive outbreak of the epidemic in Cambodia after February 20, the government imposed a 14 plus 7 “city closure” on Phnom Penh and Grand Phnom Penh, and the day I arrived was the last day of the “city closure”.
On the other hand, China is implementing the policy of “not going abroad unless necessary”, and with the high incidence of telecommunication fraud in Southeast Asia, represented by Cambodia, many people lamented that going abroad can be even more difficult. In the eyes of many people, I may be crazy to go to Cambodia at this time ……
Nonetheless, I still embarked on the road to Cambodia and had to say, “Going abroad is really strict!”
At 9:30 am on May 5, I organized my things and went to the airport. The airport was bustling in the past, and few people chose to leave the country. According to the airline agent, only about 20 people bought tickets for our flight, which was a huge contrast to the previous overcrowding.
After getting my boarding pass and checking my luggage, I made a health declaration at 11:30 and prepared to go through customs. Unlike in the past, there was a new procedure of border security before border control, and every passenger leaving the country must be questioned by them.
There were about ten people there who were in charge of making inquiries and set up a simple barrier at the airport with a small table for one-on-one inquiries, mainly about what kind of work to do in Cambodia, how to find the job, whether the tickets and visas were bought by themselves and so on, as well as the need to provide some work certificates and other things.
I went in at 11:30, the first few people who asked me felt no problem, said this person is to go, so I let me leave my passport there, to the special sampling place to sample, there are voice, eyes and saliva, this time a person said to me you can not go, I was very nervous, always thinking about how to go, and the company are about the start time.
Later, five or six police officers took turns to ask me, asking similar questions, I was very nervous, the more they asked, the more truthful I answered, but the more they did not believe me, which once made me feel depressed, in the middle they once told me that I could not leave, and even let the stewardess wrote down my luggage number. I have been thinking if I can’t go what to do, and anxious and nervous, because of the Kunming flight meltdown, I am a few days ahead of time to Chengdu to take the plane, is it so bashful to go back? Mixed feelings in the heart …..
I was so happy and sad that I didn’t even get on the plane until after a four-hour flight, when the plane landed at Phnom Penh International Airport, and the big stone in my heart finally fell.
It was only when I boarded the plane that I realized that there were only four of us on the big plane, and all the others had been advised to return. Among the three people who were with me, two were doing construction and decoration, and one was a factory. All three of them were local Sichuanese, and they were asked only a few minutes at the airport, except for the police who had been in contact with them at their domicile.
The girl who went to work in the factory told me that the police in her hometown kept calling her, saying that they were already on their way and ready to pick her up at the airport to go back, but fortunately she was finally allowed to go back to work in Cambodia without any problems.
Also, when I met passengers flying to Bangkok at the airport, they were not asked many questions, basically they were routine questions about what they were going to do and so on.
We were very lucky to be able to board the flight with only four of us, and all of us had ordinary passports and different types of jobs. Therefore, it is still not true that we were advised to return to Cambodia except for our official passports.
Here, we also remind our compatriots who plan to come to Cambodia to do their own risk assessment, and if you really need to go, prepare the information and health protection. As the border police said, “Life is more important than money, make sure you are safe.”
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