Wednesday 10th October
Much worse than the mugging itself, was the ordeal of the following day, most of which was spent in Cambodian police stations. By the end of the day, I would certainly have said it was not worth the trouble, except for the fact that unfortunately we relied on a police report in order to get our replacement, temporary passports and for any insurance claims.
The day began comically, as not one person could direct us to a police station. It was not marked in any guidebooks or maps either. We had read that the police were a bit of a joke in Cambodia and it was evidently true. Our guesthouse owner also informed us of the rife corruption - and told us if we paid a sum of money, we could perhaps have our passports 'retrieved', i.e. the criminals and the cops were one and the same. Although this did not exactly come as an almighty shock to the system, the fact that the corruption was so openly known and talked about, made us a little apprehensive.
Eventually, someone in a tourist office, which happened to be situated close to a police station, gave us some very vague, hesitant instruction, and we stumbled across it. Except 'it' wasn't really 'it'. I think it must have been some kind of administrative base. There were a couple of men inside, who didn't know what to suggest when we told them we'd been mugged. One of them said the police station was closed. Soon a crowd of men had gathered on the street - most of them not police. After much discussion and deliberation and a series of misunderstandings, the conclusion was that we had to go somewhere else - to another station. Hoping that we were not hopping on to the back of a moto with a complete randomer, we were off.
We arrived at the other station - a grubby room with a few men lazing around inside, playing cards and watching telly. No-one budged an inch to acknowledge our presence. No eye contact, no greeting and no change of activity or body language. Just hostility and sarcasm. All the officers laughed at us during the day, but looking back on it now, I think the laughter was more out of embarrassment of their own incompetence and lack of training. There was a feeling of improvisation throughout.
They got someone off the street to translate, as none of them spoke any English. What followed, was a painful half hour or so, of us trying to describe what happened and the contents of the snatched bag. Then Briony went off on a moto with one of them to show exactly where it happened. We'd got up really early to try and sort this out because we'd hoped to get a bus that afternoon, out of the city. But we were told to come back at 3pm. So next we went to the British Embassy to sort out our passports. We were told there also, that it would be useful to give a bit of money here and there to the police to speed things up. So when we arrived back at about 2.30pm, we gave $5 to the man who had taken down the initial report and driven us to the embassy, saying it was for petrol for his moto. Eventually we were taken upstairs and sat in a room for a while - again with no-one telling us what the hell was going on. Everyone just looked around and smiled awkwardly, and we wondered when the interview, or whatever, was going to begin. By this time, another translator had arrived, but at this point we didn't know that he was also an outsider. So when he told us about how hard and expensive it was to deal with crimes like this, we asked if a bit of money would help speed things along, as we were all just sitting there and we wondered if they were waiting for money before beginning! The translator said yes, but when we put $5 on the table for the policeman who it appeared was going to interview us, he wouldn't except the money, saying that we had just been robbed and it would be wrong to take money from us. All very embarrassing and confusing.
Then we were told to get up and go to another room, where apparently the boss was sat. The boss, like the others, was rude and did not acknowledge our presence. While we twiddled out thumbs, he just carried on doing his own thing, chewing gum really loudly, with his mouth wide open, on what I assume was a very large piece, by the exaggerated movements of his ugly jaw. Of course, there was no progress made with the case during the hours that had passed. We were asked exactly the same questions all over again and Briony went out once again - with the boss - to show where the incident had occurred. While away, Briony was also treated to a kiss, a cuddle and an arse grope from the boss, and I spoke to the translator about his regular job as a hotel driver, and the corruption of the police.
Shortly after Briony and the boss returned, the translator left and a woman came and sat in his place. To my dying day, I will never know what her and the boss spoke/argued about, but it felt so distinctly fake - like they were acting. He was probably asking her about another case, but it was just so surreal. Then she just upped and left and smiled at me on the way out, like nothing had just happened. We naively thought that the process had come to an end, but oh no. Now we had to see the English tourist police, for the ACTUAL report. So far we had just obtained the investigative report. While we waited for the tourist police, the boss treated us to a mini exhibition of horrendous photos that he was extremely proud of; photos of him and his officers having 'retrieved' passports etc. for other people who had been mugged; a group of disgruntled youth who he'd caught smoking; and a whole series of bloody, nasty photos of Cambodian people having been beaten up (it not being clear whether they were the victims of the criminals or the criminals themselves), including a bloody naked woman lying in a shower, who looked like she'd been raped. Briony did her best to jolly him along, saying 'very good' to everything presented to us. I, on the other hand, was at this stage finding it quite difficult to hide my bemusement and disgust.
We waved the sleazy, egotistical wanker boss goodbye as we got on to the tourist policeman's moto for the 15K drive out of town to the closed tourist police headquarters. By this point, they were really taking the piss. We had been waiting around for hours already during the day. We insisted on making a stop to call the British Embassy before going to the tourist police station out of town. And it's a good thing we did because the woman there who we'd dealt with earlier said that the tourist policeman who was accompanying us had just charged $50 each for police reports for two other girls who had been robbed the same day as us, and told us to pay no more than $10 - $15 each. Of course, we were not supposed to be paying anything at all. It's all just bullshit.
When he finally finished the reports and told us it would set us back $50 each, rather than be confrontational about it and not pay anything at all, seen as it was now dark and we were in the middle of the Cambodian countryside at the mercy of 2 or 3 crooks, we decided to play dumb and acted surprised - very shocked, in fact - when he told us the sum. "We don't have that kind of money" I explained. "We've just been robbed" etc. His reaction was actually quite pathetic and he looked like we'd hurt his feelings. When he was out of the room, we hid all our cash in one bag, and put just $30 and a few riel in my wallet. When he came back, I sadly put the money on the table and told him that was all we had, but that we also had to eat that evening and tell our families what had happened - to make it all sound more real. Although I think he completely believed us, he still took all the money. Unbelievable!
The we got into the car of another policeman who drove us most of the way back, with his rap music playing loudly. It was really eerie, because it was the holiday festival in Cambodia, so the station was closed and they were just open for business like ours, and it was very quiet all around.
For the last leg of the journey, we got back on to the moto of the tourist policeman leading the whole debacle. About half a mile from our guesthouse his moto broke down and we had to get a tuk-tuk. He was not best pleased. I laughed so hard as we saw him wheel his moto off into the distance.
We arrived at the other station - a grubby room with a few men lazing around inside, playing cards and watching telly. No-one budged an inch to acknowledge our presence. No eye contact, no greeting and no change of activity or body language. Just hostility and sarcasm. All the officers laughed at us during the day, but looking back on it now, I think the laughter was more out of embarrassment of their own incompetence and lack of training. There was a feeling of improvisation throughout.
They got someone off the street to translate, as none of them spoke any English. What followed, was a painful half hour or so, of us trying to describe what happened and the contents of the snatched bag. Then Briony went off on a moto with one of them to show exactly where it happened. We'd got up really early to try and sort this out because we'd hoped to get a bus that afternoon, out of the city. But we were told to come back at 3pm. So next we went to the British Embassy to sort out our passports. We were told there also, that it would be useful to give a bit of money here and there to the police to speed things up. So when we arrived back at about 2.30pm, we gave $5 to the man who had taken down the initial report and driven us to the embassy, saying it was for petrol for his moto. Eventually we were taken upstairs and sat in a room for a while - again with no-one telling us what the hell was going on. Everyone just looked around and smiled awkwardly, and we wondered when the interview, or whatever, was going to begin. By this time, another translator had arrived, but at this point we didn't know that he was also an outsider. So when he told us about how hard and expensive it was to deal with crimes like this, we asked if a bit of money would help speed things along, as we were all just sitting there and we wondered if they were waiting for money before beginning! The translator said yes, but when we put $5 on the table for the policeman who it appeared was going to interview us, he wouldn't except the money, saying that we had just been robbed and it would be wrong to take money from us. All very embarrassing and confusing.
Then we were told to get up and go to another room, where apparently the boss was sat. The boss, like the others, was rude and did not acknowledge our presence. While we twiddled out thumbs, he just carried on doing his own thing, chewing gum really loudly, with his mouth wide open, on what I assume was a very large piece, by the exaggerated movements of his ugly jaw. Of course, there was no progress made with the case during the hours that had passed. We were asked exactly the same questions all over again and Briony went out once again - with the boss - to show where the incident had occurred. While away, Briony was also treated to a kiss, a cuddle and an arse grope from the boss, and I spoke to the translator about his regular job as a hotel driver, and the corruption of the police.
Shortly after Briony and the boss returned, the translator left and a woman came and sat in his place. To my dying day, I will never know what her and the boss spoke/argued about, but it felt so distinctly fake - like they were acting. He was probably asking her about another case, but it was just so surreal. Then she just upped and left and smiled at me on the way out, like nothing had just happened. We naively thought that the process had come to an end, but oh no. Now we had to see the English tourist police, for the ACTUAL report. So far we had just obtained the investigative report. While we waited for the tourist police, the boss treated us to a mini exhibition of horrendous photos that he was extremely proud of; photos of him and his officers having 'retrieved' passports etc. for other people who had been mugged; a group of disgruntled youth who he'd caught smoking; and a whole series of bloody, nasty photos of Cambodian people having been beaten up (it not being clear whether they were the victims of the criminals or the criminals themselves), including a bloody naked woman lying in a shower, who looked like she'd been raped. Briony did her best to jolly him along, saying 'very good' to everything presented to us. I, on the other hand, was at this stage finding it quite difficult to hide my bemusement and disgust.
We waved the sleazy, egotistical wanker boss goodbye as we got on to the tourist policeman's moto for the 15K drive out of town to the closed tourist police headquarters. By this point, they were really taking the piss. We had been waiting around for hours already during the day. We insisted on making a stop to call the British Embassy before going to the tourist police station out of town. And it's a good thing we did because the woman there who we'd dealt with earlier said that the tourist policeman who was accompanying us had just charged $50 each for police reports for two other girls who had been robbed the same day as us, and told us to pay no more than $10 - $15 each. Of course, we were not supposed to be paying anything at all. It's all just bullshit.
When he finally finished the reports and told us it would set us back $50 each, rather than be confrontational about it and not pay anything at all, seen as it was now dark and we were in the middle of the Cambodian countryside at the mercy of 2 or 3 crooks, we decided to play dumb and acted surprised - very shocked, in fact - when he told us the sum. "We don't have that kind of money" I explained. "We've just been robbed" etc. His reaction was actually quite pathetic and he looked like we'd hurt his feelings. When he was out of the room, we hid all our cash in one bag, and put just $30 and a few riel in my wallet. When he came back, I sadly put the money on the table and told him that was all we had, but that we also had to eat that evening and tell our families what had happened - to make it all sound more real. Although I think he completely believed us, he still took all the money. Unbelievable!
The we got into the car of another policeman who drove us most of the way back, with his rap music playing loudly. It was really eerie, because it was the holiday festival in Cambodia, so the station was closed and they were just open for business like ours, and it was very quiet all around.
For the last leg of the journey, we got back on to the moto of the tourist policeman leading the whole debacle. About half a mile from our guesthouse his moto broke down and we had to get a tuk-tuk. He was not best pleased. I laughed so hard as we saw him wheel his moto off into the distance.
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