How I Escaped Human Traffickers at The Cambodian / Thai Border - Part 1

As a solo female traveller it can be quiet tough at times to travel the world... Especially when you are young and inexperienced and think most people in the world are good people...

About 8 years ago I started my first solo trip as a women to the other side of the world and ever since, traveling became my passion. If you have read my intro post yesterday, you know how it all started...

Short recap: I started to work as a travel agent in Sydney and when the travel bug got me again, I started my own travel agency online, my main business where I can keep doing me and travel the globe.

I travelled South East Asia by myself. I trusted the wrong people faaar too many times. This time it was very close to be human trafficked, and it really took me a looong time to read the red flags.

I will share this story with you in this post.

As a result of this and many other travel experiences and have had, Girls Kick Ass was born.

My goal is to get women into self-defense to expand their awareness and to stay safe on the road. As I wish I was aware at the time when things happened to me...

So, let's get started with part 1:

**The Time I met this Girl in Bangkok… Was she part of the Gang? **

What happened?

How did I get there?

How did I got stuck in this hotel room? How did I NOT read all the obvious red flags along the way?

I met this girl in a bar in Bangkok. She was a local girl. Very nice, friendly and very open and bubbly.

Rhynn was about the same age as I was at the time (23). She came up to me at a bar in Koh San Road, I was there with two friends of mine.

My friends had left earlier, Rhynn and me danced the night away.

When I decided to go home, she took my number and wanted to hang out again ‘as she likes to hang out with Westerner people’.

She really wanted to introduce me to her Spanish friend Gerard, whom she has been friends with since many years.

Gerard teaches English in Bangkok.

On the next day we visited him at his house where I met a few other Westerner people (and locals) as well, who were doing the same thing as him: Teaching English and trying to survive on a local salary.

We shared food, tea, cigarettes and played games.

We spend some more time together over the next two weeks or so.

Rhynn took me to different places around Bangkok, she introduced me to her family. I even stayed over one night at her place.

Her family and friends took me out for dinner, and bought me presents.

I felt VERY awkward about them paying my food for me and giving presents, however, Rhynn explained to me that this would be normal in the Thai culture and that this simply means they welcome me to their country.

Refusing presents and paying your own bill would be rude and I please shouldn’t do that.

Okay, gotcha. Who wants to be rude to people who treat you nicely? Not me.

Time passed by, we had an AWESOME time, caught up with another local friend of mine whom I met at a language school in Australia. We all bonded very well and had great fun!

My time was up and I had to leave the country as my visa was about to expire.

Next destination: Cambodia. My plan was to travel to Vietnam through Cambodia.

A one way tourist bus ticket to Cambodia cost $50 at the time, whereas catching the local bus (going in exactly the same direction) would cost me $2.50.

Rynn thought it’s a brilliant idea to connect me with one of her girl friends, because she was travelling in the same direction.

I can’t remember her name, but let’s call her Fifi. Fifi works in the ‘wild west’ border town of Poipet as a cashier at a casino.

Leaving Thailand / Entering Cambodia looks like this:

Poipet is a transient, dirty, lawless little town.

Cambodia (and Poipet especially!) is regularly referred to as the human-trafficking hub of Southeast Asia, but it's hard to know by which measure. Anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are trafficked there annually. AND I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT IT!

I had been blindly following Rynn’s friend, in hope I will make it in time in order to catch this one bus to Cambodia, only to find out the whole thing was set up and planned from the beginning…

If I only read the red flags popping up from the beginning. My awareness failed throughout this bus journey, I was hungry, tired, exhausted from months of travelling and simply not thinking someone would want to do any harm.

This was certainly one of the edgiest experiences I have EVER been through.

I don't want to write too long blog posts, so in the next post tomorrow I will share with you what happened along the bus journey and how I ended up in this man’s car...

Much Love,

Tina ‘I wish I had more awareness at the time’ Dahmen

I have created an online self-defense course for female travellers. Feel free to get your FREE video lessons here: https://girlskickass.org/female-traveler/

You will learn about the 4 most common scenarios & attacks which happen to women on the road.

Women on Steemit: Check this out: http://bit.ly/2r9eIZ0