Learning to drive and Noah's Ark

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So Kirstin told me its my job this time to write the blog. Thats fair as I never do the writing and she is usually more on top of things.

So we have been going through a few khmer teachers since the last teacher had a family emergency and ending up leaving for Battambang province. Last week we taught ourselfs some Khmer from a CD and YouTube videos and this week we had our new short term teacher. Honestly I can’t remember his name but he was ok. He was a super nice person however he didn’t have a whole lot of experience teaching Barang(i.e. white people) folks like us. At first we were kind of frustrated with his teaching style so we looked getting yet another new teacher and found a more experienced person(with the help of Bud and Shari). Towards the end of the week, the teacher we had this week got better but we will be happy with the more experienced teacher as we feel it will be the right move for the long run learning khmer(i.e. Cambodian)

Other news, Kirstin and I are now riding and driving the moto. The moto is basically like a vespa in Europe but doesn’t cost as much too own. You really only drive around 12 to 18 mph the majority of the time but it feels pretty quick in a city that is only 6 miles across or so.

To drive it correctly you need to throw away all western driving rules. This means cutting people off, driving against oncoming traffic, Pennsylania lefts are required, using the stop lights as more of a suggestion than strict rule, using the horn to let people know your coming(not to offend them), etc. Best part is the left turn lane is not in the middle in Cambodia but instead on the outside lane outer most part in the oncoming traffic. It’s hard to explain but honestly I am enjoying and just laughing trying to figure it all out. Funny part is I am a pretty passive driver in the US and Kirstin is more aggressive but in Cambodia it’s the complete opposite.

Using this moto, Kirstin and I now go to the muscle gym a few times a week. Basically it is the khmer version of an American gym for $1.6 a person per time. To be honest, we are very happy finding it as it is not easy to walk or jog in this country with all the crazy traffic(forgot to add either moto’s drive on the sidewalk or business’s commandeer them for extra space or most of the time both, so it s challenge). However, the machines are Chinese made so I believe that the MPH calibration on them is a bit off. Put it this way, the 2.5 miles I ran yesterday might be the hardest 2.5 miles in 30 minutes EVER. I would prefer to actually use Kilometers but the gym changed it to miles (maybe for us Barang’s?). Anyway, just something to note while jogging.

Other big news, today we had the worst storm of the year. Basically it rained like Noah’s Ark for around 2 hours and completely flooded the city, especially the street where we live on. The few cars that went down the street made mini-waves like a wave pool and the moto’s sounded more like speed boats on lake Michigan. Granted, we were not able to get back to work from lunch at home as we didn’t want to walk in the cesspool(mix of dirt, oil, car fumes, garbage, etc) or risk driving the moto-boat through it. The majority of Khmer’s felt the same way as the street was for the most part empty.
Unfortunately our poor landlord’s apartment flooded about 3-5 inches on the ground floor which includes her family room and kitchen area. Our hallway/moto garage flooded and we hope the bike still works ok and didn’t get water damaged. Who knows how much longer our 5 hour lunch break will last for(the flood didn’t go away until 9 that night, it lasted 9 hours!!!).

Some of the waves made from the cars actually got so big they knocked over the moto’s and the poor moto drivers took a bath in the cesspool street. No matter what, I doubt I will ever attempt to drive in this(useless an emergency or going to the airport, which is probably also flooded). Another reason to hate all the lexus drivers in cambodia(and with the corruption or “government fees” there are a lot)
Man, makes the rain in Seattle look like nothing compared to this. This would make the NBC nightly news in the US.
We decided to make a youtube video to really show you whats going on. At the end you will be the apartment hallway. Don’t think we are going anywhere soon.

It took forever to upload the video so we will post it sometime next week.

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