Crossing the border during Covid

Aranyaprathet to Poipet, and back.

By Sovandarapor (James) Kong · 2026-08-18 · Life

I''m half Thai, half Khmer. During Covid I was in Thailand and the border was closed. My grandfather was sick and my father told me that if I didn''t come now I might not see him alive again. So I went.

My father gave me a contact in Aranyaprathet. I called him and he said meet me tomorrow in front of the 7-Eleven. I went and stood there. He kept texting to ask where I was, even though I was directly in front of it. I think fair skin and a tourist face made him worry I was police rather than a migrant. Eventually he found his courage and put me on the back of his motorbike.

He drove into the slums. At the back of them I could see people crossing the other way, Khmer workers coming in for jobs in Thailand. The guide showed us where to duck and crawl so we wouldn''t touch the wires and set off the sirens. Then there was a plank across a channel of water, sewage by the smell of it. Everyone walked across. I fell in. They pulled me out, I paid, and I waited in the Cambodian sun with half of me covered in filth. My father collected me, we washed at a friend''s house nearby, and I saw my grandfather.

Coming back was the frightening part. Same arrangement, call a man, sit on a motorbike. This time no slum. He turned onto a paved road and I looked up at a police station. My heart sank. He told me to go inside. The senior officer looked at my face and said "tang, tang." Eight thousand. Then a man walked in wearing nothing but red underwear and I was told to follow him. I had heard enough stories to assume the worst.

Behind the station was the same dirty water and a small raft made of styrofoam. He got in, told me to put my bag on it and sit, and pushed me across. On the other side he pointed me over a hill to a waiting car, almost certainly Thai police as well, since they clearly work together. The driver asked where I was going. Bus station. Then Bangkok.

The first crossing was rough because it was Songkran and Khmer New Year. The people who run the comfortable route had all gone home for the holiday.