Vietnamese Border "Taxes"

After reading about all of the corruption and national hobby of wringing all the money they possibly can from visiting tourists, it was appropriate that our first experience was watching the border guards indiscriminately demanding fees from people on our bus for inexplicable reasons.

After we'd been stamped out of Cambodia, walked across the border (amazed by the complete and utter lack of beggars, touts and or anyone else trying to separate us from our money) filled out our entry forms in Vietnam and walked over to the next desk. A girl who had been on our bus was arguing with the man at the desk about a fee he was asking her to pay. She was obviously perturbed and was explaining to him with barely masked aggression that she had crossed this border before and she had never been charged a fee. What was the fee for? He couldn't tell her. Did he want her to call his boss? Call your boss!

Finally she agreed to pay and handed him some money. When he returned her change, she looked at it incredulously and told him that he had not given her the correct change. After another few tense moments of arguing, he handed her another bill and she stormed off. All the while the woman had been yelling at him, the man had been taking forms from the next people in line and filling them out. My passport was next in line, but was lost as he continued to take other passports without finishing the process with mine. I thought I might get out of the whole mess, but sneaking around to the other side of the desk and picking up my passport, but as I did, he looked at me and said, "you must pay the fee." I asked him how much it was and he replied that it was 15,000 Dong (or US $1). I explained that we didn't have any Dong to which he replied, "1000 Reil" (or US $.25). We happily paid our 25 cent bribe, as we watched others hand over US $1 and listened to complaints from other travelers that the men at the first desk were charging people $1 just to sign their forms. I don't know how we escaped all that, but it was nice to watch with the detached emotions of a bystander instead of the frustration of a victim.