Bubble T wrote:The part about them checking bank balance over the phone with card number and pin simply isn't believable, sorry. I'm inclined to believe Violet genuinely thought that's what happened and isn't being deliberately dishonest, but was somehow mistaken about that part of the story. It just isn't feasible.
My original thought was that they'd stopped and given the card for someone to go try a withdrawal... However thé moving car obviously means that's not the case. Bank insider is the only possibility, but that means having an insider at every single for bank, which isn't probable at all.
I honestly also think many things happened in violets mind rather than reality. As in the typical "Oh, that's a really nice watch, how much did it cost you?" spiel being interpreted as a robbery... Notre to that extent, but she probably misread several events. The water bottle thing was probably more of a "here, have a drink". I think the whole acid thing is what her brain related to make sense of what she wasn't understanding. She speaks no Khmer and was in a high stress environment, so it's not unusual for the brain to fill in the gaps on its own in such situations.
As for the phone, it's always useful. I'm not talking about carrying and iPhone X while travelling, but even a $60 phone will have Google maps and GPS. Never tell people it's your first time in the country to the taxi drivers at a port of entry. I made that mistake only once (in India, of all places to keep ones guard down) and it ended up with me getting out in the middle of a roundabout in New Delhi with the scammer driver shouting at me and almost ended up in a punch up. Still, the phone with preloaded maps allowed me to know I was being diverted time and time again from the destination and put an end to his bullshit (basically claiming hotel was closed and refusing to bring me there, festival this and that, etc etc). Usually the trick is to walk with a determined pace, say you've been there before and then pull out the phone now and then for navigation.