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Published: November 1st 2008
The BB is finally up and running and so I have replied to emails from Matthew and my TWO friends!
Arrived in PP early yesterday morning. SURPRISE! No motorbike.
In agreement to the need for a newer bike needing fewer repairs, we went shopping as anticipated.
Sophat had already scoped out a honda 250 Baja with new off road tires and double headlamps, and so we contacted his friend, who just happens to be friends with the owner's son etc etc, test drove then bought it. Correction ...WE didn't buy it ....I did!
As everything "Cambodian" is to be paid from my bank account, Matthew will have to be repaid from my meagre earnings in my WAMU account.
It's off to the Lawyers today and then a likely side trip to Kratie (towards Stung Treng, along the Mekong in the direction of Loas, the home of the white dolphin) to attend a wedding. The message is that I'm to provide the dancing entertainment and be available for photographs with each of the guests. Thus begins the temporary celebrity status again as I am now famous (infamous really) in three provinces as the dancing 'Barang' (foriengner).
I tried to beg off with the excuse that "I have nothing to wear" but they don't care, said Sophat, they just want you to make them happy ....and have the prestige of a westerner in their wedding pictures, and the hope of a dollar donation unmatched by others!
My intent is to end up in Ratanakiri AFTER having fun first, because as we all know now, there are so many problems there that I would spend my time not being able to solve them and become frustrated. Sophat introduced me to the lastest plot in the Banlung 'Novella' and it involves infidelities between almost everyone there, if the rumours are to be believed (his ex-wife Sonie and my chief builder play star parts).
Yet again, it's the latest reason in a long line of them as to why the "Nut House" on the "Nut Farm" isn't completed. The last of the money sent has likely been used to pay Sonie's seduction price, support her and her two children, and provide a private meeting room (no such thing as privacy in Banlung). Everyone is expecting me to fix this mess (except Sonie of course).
The house in Stung Treng is finished and shelters the nine members essentially homeless before. Sick Grandma has hung on to see to It's completion, and I hope she is able to enjoy living there for a while before the monks repay her devotion with an elaborate passing ceremony. Thought to be in her late 80's, she's lived a longer life than most, especially after surviving the atrocities in the time of Pol Pot.
The travelblog was inaccessible before but is up and running now. Difficult to use from the Blackberry, it would be more simple for others to acess my blatherings ad lib, than for me to fill up individual inboxes. Will give it another go.....
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
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Matthew
non-member comment
Bajajaja!
Why is that in Cambodia, where their roads are arguably the worst in most all the world, they have a bike called the "Baja"? Do you think that in the remote Mexican penninsula of the west they sell off road vehicles called the "Cambo" or the "Khmer"?