A Warning to Travellers Bound for Cambodia (Sri Lanka too)

As I drove out to Adelaide airport this afternoon, I was looking forward to a quiet Covid-free Christmas at the Raffles in Phnom Penh. I was planning to spend a few days in Cambodia’s capital, maybe a dinner cruise down the Mekong, and then head to the southern river town of Kampot which I had heard was becoming a “foodies’ destination”. After that, onto Sihanoukville where I was planning to catch a ferry to Koh Rong for a week, and then a week on Koh Rong Samloem.

I reached the airport two hours before my departure time and joined the queue of passengers checking in for my Singapore Airlines (SQ) flight. When I got to the check-in desk the staff member pulled out a manual which listed the different entry requirements for all the countries of the world (it was a large manual!) and they went through my paperwork (passport, visa, vaccination certificates, PCR test certificate, clinic’s ISO certificate) to check everything was in order.

When the young woman behind the desk started looking at my PCR certificate and consulting with another staff member, I already knew what they were looking at. There was no doctor’s signature on the certificate and no doctor’s rubber stamp. I’d already read about that requirement when I obtained my Cambodia visa online, but I had been assured by two clinics in Adelaide that wouldn’t be a problem because Australian PCR certificates have a QR code through which it can be verified internationally.

Denied boarding

But the SQ staff said I couldn’t board the flight because the entry requirements specifically stated that it must be an original certificate signed by a doctor. I told them that the South Australian Government’s test clinic, SA Pathology, does not sign certificates, and I had been to a private clinic as well (Australian Clinical Labs) and they had assured me they had issued PCR test certificates to travellers heading to Cambodia, and they had not heard of anybody having problems (maybe those travellers hadn’t reported back to them).

The staff member at Australian Clinical Labs told me that nobody signs test certificates these days – they are always verified through QR codes. Although I was already aware that this could be a problem, it didn’t concern me too much because I thought if the Cambodian authorities were not satisfied with the certificate on arrival in Phnom Penh, I could just take an additional PCR test there (Cambodia already requires a rapid antigen test on arrival) and book a night’s hotel quarantine until the PCR result came through.

I suggested that as a solution to the SQ staff, but they said no, they were not allowed to board anyone who did not fully comply with the entry requirements of the country where they would be disembarking. I then suggested I could get a new PCR test done in Singapore because I had a nine-hour transit there, but they told me that there are no testing facilities on the transit side at Changi Airport. And I would not be able to enter Singapore to get a test at the clinic on the other side of immigration, because only residents and employment pass holders were currently permitted to enter.

They said a possible solution was to call SA Pathology and see if they could re-issue the certificate with a doctor’s signature and stamp, or have SA Pathology write something on an official government letterhead verifying the certificate by quoting my name, passport details and certificate number, have that signed by a doctor, and emailed to me at the airport, and they would print it out for me. 

Sri Lanka too

I called SA Pathology and explained my dilemma to them. They said this was the first they had heard about these requirements (which was surprising because SQ told me that the same entry requirements applied to Sri Lanka). I told them what I needed and initially it appeared they might be able to help, but after I got through to a supervisor my hopes were dashed.

“This is ridiculous”, the supervisor said. “That’s what we used to do in the 1950s. Today everyone uses QR codes.” Then he asked: “How much time do we have?” I told him the flight would be boarding in about 45 minutes. “Oh, I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything to help you within that timeframe”.

I reported SA Pathology’s response back to the SQ staff and they made a further suggestion and that was to do what travellers to Japan were doing, and that was to take the SA Pathology certificate to a GP and have them verify it with a signature and stamp. There was a GP’s clinic outside the terminal building so the check-in person called the clinic to see if there was a doctor on duty.

I could tell by the look on her face when she came off the phone that there wasn’t. “The doctors have gone on Christmas holidays early, so there’s nobody in the clinic who could sign the certificate”, she said.

She then started looking on Google Maps for other GP clinics near the airport, but I said that’s not going to work. “It’s hard enough making an appointment to see a GP. I’m sure I’m not going to be able to just show up and find a doctor to sign a certificate that he knows nothing about, even if I can find a clinic that’s open”, I added. She said a passenger had done that the previous week, although the doctor had charged $300 for his signature.

I told her I had already checked my rental car in. And finding a taxi willing to cruise around looking for a GP’s clinic that was still open (by now it was nearly 5pm) really wasn’t a practical solution given that the flight would be boarding in 45 minutes. I said the only option was to reroute me to Phuket and then I would get a new PCR test done there and rebook a flight to Phnom Penh after Christmas (I knew Phuket’s sandbox was still open).

But that wasn’t an option, she said, because although I had all the necessary documents to enter Phuket, you need the register for the sandbox scheme online, and that approval would take a while to come through.

Rerouting options

So I said: “Okay, reroute me to Dubai then, because I know you can get in there with the documents I have because they are admitting tourists for World Expo”. 

By this stage several other SQ staff members were assisting us because they had completed checking in all the other passengers. One of the male SQ staff members got his laptop out and started checking flight availabilities to make sure I could reach Dubai before the 72 hours validity of my PCR test certificate expired. He confirmed that I could, but he said I would have to go on the next day’s flight because checking-in had been completed for today’s flight (except for me of course), it wouldn’t be possible to refund my fare to Phnom Penh and rebook to Dubai because today’s flight would no longer be showing up in their system as available to book.

I responded: “What if I use my existing ticket as far as Singapore and not fly the Phnom Penh sector, and when I get to Singapore I book a new flight to Dubai”. He said the problem with that suggestion was that I would not be able to get a refund for the Singapore to Phnom Penh sector because I would have already flown the Adelaide to Singapore sector, and they could not permit me to board if I was flying only to Singapore because I didn’t qualify to enter Singapore. I could only transit there if I had an onward ticket to another destination for which my documentation was valid.

I then suggested I buy a new ticket from Singapore to Dubai and then they could check me all the way through from Adelaide to Dubai. I was sure he was going to say no to that because I’d read on the Singapore Airlines website that passengers could only transit through Singapore if the journey was on one ticket. Separate tickets were not permitted. But either he overlooked that, or maybe that rule doesn’t apply if you are using the same airline.

Several of the staff were concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get a refund for the Singapore-Phnom Penh sector, but I said not to worry about that because if I didn’t get away on today’s flight, I would have to hire another car to stay in Adelaide, get another PCR test done and then pay a doctor somewhere to verify the test certificate.

The SQ staff said I would have to purchase the ticket online because given the time it takes to get through to their phone sales, the flight might have departed by the time the ticket sale could be completed. One of the staff members whipped out his laptop (to save me unpacking mine) and proceeded to assist me to book a flight to Dubai. The only flight available involved a 21-hour transit in Singapore, but if you must do a long transit anywhere in the world, I guess Changi is the best airport to do it.

We held our breath when the payment page came up because sometimes the verification OTPs for debit card payments don’t come through to the phone straightaway, but luckily this time it did, and a big hurrah went up from both me and some of the SQ staff.  I was on my way . . . or so I thought.

Disappearing passport

The staff member who had been handling my check-in said: “May I have your passport please”. I replied: “You already have it. I gave it to you after the vaccination certificates”. She looked around on her counter and said she couldn’t see it. She suggested it might have been inside the papers she had handed back to me.

I pulled all of the travel documents out of my carry-on and it wasn’t there. I checked my pockets and my jacket. No passport. At this stage panic was setting in because I had visions of some other passenger having accidentally walked off with my passport and me now stranded in Australia without a passport.

All of the SQ staff in the terminal were now frantically looking behind the check-in desks, and down the sides of the baggage belts, whilst I emptied everything out of my carry-on on the floor to show them it wasn’t there. One of the staff members asked if he could check my jacket again. I said go ahead, but he found nothing. We were all stumped. Where had my passport disappeared to?

At this point I felt very deflated. I had gone through over an hour of emotional highs and lows and now it looked like my first international travel for nearly two years, to which I had been so looking forward to, was not going to happen.

Suddenly a voice behind us shouted: “I’ve found it!”

Apparently, after all the other passengers had been checked in, one of the staff members had gone behind the check-in desks and loaded all the entry requirement manuals onto a trolley to take them back to the Singapore Airlines office, not realising that my passport was sitting on one of those manuals. He had closed it with the passport inside.

As I waited to retrieve my passport and for my boarding passes to be printed, I remarked to one of the SQ staff members: “How often do you get complicated check-ins like this?” He replied: “Oh, every day”. He had a face mask on, so I couldn’t see if he was smiling. I initially assumed he was joking, but maybe he wasn’t given how complicated travel has become in the Covid era.

After that it was a mad dash to the boarding gate escorted by one of the SQ staff members with a walkie-talkie who took me through all the passenger barriers and facilitated queue jumping at the two security checkpoints. Immigration took only a couple of minutes and then I was on board. In less than 10 minutes after that I was in the air, but now heading to Dubai instead of Cambodia.