Hittin' the Road with My Usual Hijinx

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Lets just pick right up where we left off.

Okay so the jeep wasn't screwed or anything. Just a $50 flush to the fuel system and it was good to go. I did wind up repairing the brakes for $120 at the mechanics insistence. I am not sure exactly what was fixed because nobody speaks good enough English to tell me, but the mechanic is Vanna's brother-in-law so I just did it.

So now the jeep is all good mechanically, all I need is my registration card and license plate. Socheata tells me that Vanna will do it for me, but after a 4 more days of waiting or so I am getting ancy. I decide to go to the Ministry of Transportation myself to find out how long it will take and what I need. My recommendation to anybody doing this is to bring a friend who speaks Khmer. It turns out there is absolutely nobody at the ministry who speaks English. After about 15 minutes of trying to talk to a variety of different people I am helped by a friendly person who is also there getting something done to their car and luckily for me, speaks English.

I get a list of all the items I need to bring back with the car to register it.

When I get back to Socheata's house I show her the list. She reads it, points to the part that says import tax paper and says "your car no have this."

What do you mean my car no have this? I thought this car had all the paperwork in order.

"What about the little tax sticker I was given to put in my windshield?" I ask.

"That not for your car. It just to have sticker in window. You know?" Is the reply I'm given.

The conversation continues like this for a little bit and by the end of it I am shocked and amazed. Some how after all my effort to make sure the car I was buying had all the legal documents. It turns out it has none of them. I cannot by any means explain how this happened. I was 100% convinced they understood that I wanted to buy a legal car. In fact at one point I looked at the jeep I bought and after I looked at it she asked me if I liked it. I told her not really and that I really like the old military ones. So when I came back 4 days later and told her I wanted to buy it she was surprised and asked why. I said I wanted to be smart and buy a vehicle that has all the correct paperwork and none of the old military jeeps did. I even said "chalat" which is the Khmer word for smart or clever just to emphasize.

Anyways so it turns out the plan is to buy me old license plates from some other car and Vanna's work. They get me two matching old license plates - "Because your car is old. Strange if you have new license plates" Of course. Makes perfect sense right? (if I could draw an image of me smacking my head it would go right here) - and a registration card that matches the license plates. Unfortunately the reg card says Honda. So I have a completely illegal jeep with a tax sticker from one car, a reg card and license plates for a Honda, and a key that is a Toyota. The funny things is the jeep is a Suzuki. Oh yeah I also got a Nissan key when I bought the jeep that doesn't fit anything. Maybe it likes a lucky key and if I find the car it works on I can keep it.

At this point I just don't care I need to get the hell out of the capital. So I just decide to take the jeep as it is and I will probably sell it down here in Sihanoukville and buy something legal. If it can't be a jeep then it will just have to be something else cool.

During the few days that all this is playing out I continue with getting other things done. I have taken Ikelos to the vet again and he is on a ton of medicine now. He is on medicine for his weak heart, stuff to repair his stomach lining because he has an ulcer, pills to help with his digestion, and an antibiotic because he a a small infection in his lungs. There is a a big rottweiler staying in the hotel next to me, the guy is moving back to the states and taking his dog with him. I have talked to him a few times and played with his dog. So anyways I call the vet to ask how much the blood test is for Ikelos and the receptionist tells me $180. Wow! I'm thinking that's really high. So I call back again the next day to ask how the blood test is. She tells me $180 again and then says that she told me yesterday. I tell her I know but that sounds really high, more than it would cost in America. After a little more discussion it turns out she thinks I am somebody else and is quoting me the wrong price. It turns out the blood test is $50 and she thought I was doing a rabies titer blood test. So on my way to the vet the next day I see a tuk tuk fly pass by me with a big rottie in it. it turns out my neighbor had an appointment for the same day. He is getting the $180 test done.

I had a bit of trouble finding somebody to take my motorcycle down to Sihanoukville for me. None of the big bus companies would do it. They all said my motorcycle is too big and only small scooters will fit. I kept trying to tell them it would fit, but to no avail. I wound up having to pay the quite expensive price of $20 to put it on a local bus and hope that the guy was honest and I would see my motorcycle again. It turns out he was and everything worked out well enough. I even still had gas in the tank when I picked it up!

So I was set. I loaded up the jeep and Ikelos and I took off early the following day. Its always best to travel early here because you never know what will happen with the vehicle and there is always going to be rain at some point in the afternoon this time of year. As it a happened it did rain and I while it was raining one of my windshield wipers decided to die on me, of course it was the one directly in front of me. I just kept driving through it anyways. All of my power steering fluid leaked out along the way as well, so I lost power steering about 3/4 of the way there. Also when I went to open the back door to get something, it turns out all the bumpy roads had caused a shitty welding job (covered by paint of course so as not to be noticeable) on one of the hinges holding the back door on to break. So I need to get that fixed otherwise I will probably break the other one if I keep opening the door. But hey, the engine held strong and get me all the way there without overheating or dying out.

I've been down in the beach town I want to live for four nights now. The weather is much nicer here. In the capital you sweat anytime you stand outside for a little while. Here there is a nice breeze, you could stand around in the sun and mess with your motorbike and still not sweat here.

I've been staying in a hotel with aircon, hot water, and cable for $16 a night. Its weird, when I was a backpacker I would just rent some hut on the beach somewhere for $5. Now I have Ikelos and I feel like he needs aircon, but maybe not here. I don't know, maybe the fresh air would be better for him even if it is a little hotter. I am also trying to get real life things done here so I need to stay a bit closer to town and have good internet connection. I am working on transitioning from a backpacker to an expat.

I joined a decent gym down here, it doesn't have a ton of equipment, but it has enough and it is air conditioned. Which is something I really like in a gym. It cost $40 a month for a 3 month membership, but the benefit is that I can also use their resort pool.

I know it is much harder to make money down here than the capital so for now I have taken a (probably crappy) phone sales job from a company based in Australia. At least it is inbound calls. For a 40 hour work week (which nicely enough is from home so when no inbound calls ringing I can play with Ikelos, exercise, cook, or pursue other avenues of making money) I get a base pay of $1400 AUD a month (at the current exchange rate you would minus 10% to get my pay in American dollars so this would be $1260. I also get $25 AUD for every deal that I close after one a day. I am thinking I should reasonably able to make close $1750 US a month. Its not great but will certainly pay all my bills here. I will start on Monday and began training a few hours in the morning on the 9th.

I will have to be inventive and creative to make decent money down here in Sihanoukville. I need to do something that nobody else is doing and that is hard to copy. I am just going to keep my eyes and ears open for a few months.

I went house hunting for 3 days. I wound up taking something that is a little more than I wanted to spend, but is ridiculously nice. The problem is that the quality difference you get between $300 and $400 is huge. Anything for $300 or less is to Khmer style for my liking. Which means they tend to be dirty like everything needs a good pressure wash and sometimes they smell stale or moldy. There were some Khmer style ones that were nice and cleaner but I didn't like them for one reason or another. Many had a metal gate (what they use for a door here) and some vent holes that had no screens so there would be no way to keep insects out at night. Some didn't have hot water heaters or only one bedroom with an aircon unit. I found a nice western one with two nice balcony that had a view of the ocean because it was on a hill. I liked it but the stairs were steep and I thought I would be spending a lot of time upstairs or on a balcony which meant Ikelos would be downstairs alone. It was 3 bedroom and 4 bath all with aircon and 3 bathrooms with hotwater.

I am paying $400 a month for the one I rented which is honestly a bit more than I wanted and needed but the smaller one across the street with the same style the lady would only go as low as $400 so I figured might as well take the nicer one. It is three bedroom and four bathroom. The master bedroom is quite large and has a balcony,. The other two are both reasonably sized all with aircon, small balcony and two of the three with hot water. It has a big open living room and kitchen area with a nice wooden staircase. There is also a storage room which is big enough to be considered a bedroom in many of the Khmer houses. It also comes with a two burner portable cooktop, a refridgerator, couch, flatscreen tv, dining room table and two beds. It is in a gated community so there is good security and a couple of minutes outside downtown so nice and quiet. There is also a gated front area with a small grassy patch and driveway for Ikelos and my car. After adding my estimated bills up I should be all in for rent, bills, and maid for about $625. So its workable but would be great to have a roommate or even rent out a bedroom to backpackers for $50 or $75 a week.

I want to make sure to get a maid so that I have somebody who can take car of Ikelos when I go away for a couple of days.



None of this seems as interesting as my usual travelblogs it is all just real life stuff, but at least everybody knows I am alive and well.

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Photos

Flooding
This happened in 30 minutes of raining

The World Keeps Turning
Well life doesn't stop when it rains. You still gotta get places. Pretty ballsy takin' a scooter through that

See...
She wasn't as lucky

On the way home
I remember when it used to rain on me when I biked home from school. Not quite like this though.

Can You Read It?
not very nice huh?

You Asked For It
Well you asked for a photo of me and this the best I could get. I swear the camera man wasn't even drunk. I was though. Drinking Sake with my friend Saki. He drives a tuk tuk and would periodically give me free rides if he saw me walking in the direction he was going. He also took Ikelos and I to the vet and helped me arrange my bike transport to Sihanoukville.

Rottie in a Tuk Tuk
He beat me to the vet

On the Road Again
On the way to my new hometown. I will live 5 minutes from the beach and I can drive to the mini mountains in 1 hour.

Pit Stop
Grabbing a bite to eat, figured I take a photo. That's Bokor National Park in the back. About 45 minutes from me.

Getting Closer
I can smell the salty air!

Chillen with Ikelos
He's got his water bowl and I have my mojito. I know my photos suck just deal with it. One of these days I'll take my fancy camera and go take some nice photos.

Dog Days
Not a bad way for him to spend his golden years

New Digs
Fancy Huh?

Comments

[Cambodian Tart!!!]

Elsie read your blog and she was laughing so hard about your jeep!!! It\'s sad and funny!! I miss you Bong Brett!