Here in Bodia we gots two seasons, wet and dry, aka not rainy and raining like every day. Now we haven't hit the actual rainy season yet, but only got a few nice glimpses of an ever present future coming my way, and it aint pretty. Its actually purdy messy, being that the deluges that bring torrential rain make it hard to do just about anything here. Wanna teach some youngsters how to kickflip, nope. Wanna go see the ladies at the market for lunch or dinner, nope. Wanna cruise to out and meet some amigos for a watered down Angkor, nope.
Not really a whole lot gets done when the rain gets to rainin. The power usually goes out. The black river, aka open sewer system starts to overflow and streets get flooded. If you are unlucky enough to be on a moto, you have two options. Put on a lil plastic poncho and try your best to make it to wherever you are headed to, or just post up under the closest shop and wait it out. I like the second option personally as it give me some nice time to practice my non-existent Khmer language skills, and always improving hand gestures and sounds in order to communicate.
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| Rainin Sideways Yall. |
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| Careful with the Moto Broto! |
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| Who Wants to Take a Dip in the Darkness of the Black River? |
Now as I mentioned, stuff gets flooded out and flooded over, and if you are lucky enough to be in a place with virtually zero coordinated infrastructure, you can how interesting it can be. This brings me to a nice lil story that happened Saturday for me, which is actually Friday for you, and now I am actually writing this tomorrow. Still with me....... Technically I'm in the future here, so if anyone wants to know some cool factiods about whats gonna happen and who is gonna win the NBA or NHL finals, think of me as your personal Biff Tannen.
So back to some story tellin. Saturday morning team Sweatistan decided to take a group outing with the whole staff (including boyfriends and daughters((none of which were mine by the way))), Belgian doco film crew, a couple skate-students, some home cooked yum yums. We loaded up El Jefe's red coche and the Cambodian Crusher full of all of the above mentioned goods and headed out to Takeo province, where our very own Chan2 grew up, for a country picnic and visit to the wildlife park. Sounds pretty nice right. Well you bet it was. It was pretty fucking awesome, we had lunch with some monkeys, saw sunbears, crocodiles, tigers, and all sorts of cool critters. Everything was going as planned. Then, guess what came next. Rain. It wasn't superbad rain, but it was a couple hours of on and off again rain, no biggy....... right?????
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| Monkey Lunch! |
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| Me and Sawadee, Savuern's lil one. Most Common Words Between Us Goes Like This, "Brother Play Angry Birds?!" |
We need to now remember what I mentioned before about the lack of infrastructure here, things like roads n such, and how they are affected by rain. Deciding that if it is gonna keep rainin, we should head out soon as roads get messy and if we are out too late we would be driving in the dark. Like real dark, as until you reach the Penh most highways are unlit and littered with motos, also unlit, and an overall pretty treacherous time. Add to this the fact that we have to bring Chan2, her lil cousins, and Madre back home to their village which is down some Cambo country roads before we even make it to the highway sets us up for some hijinks.
There are two roads to Chan2's house, and the good road aka better dirt road is actually being worked on, so the other only option is use the not so good road. Going in and out the first time to pick people up wasn't too bad, as it had yet rained that day. Key word being yet. After the rain and on our way to drop folks off things were a bit messy, but not too too bad. Or so I thought.
On the way out, things got radical. Like ole fashion car in the radical. While driving out on a dirt path not much bigger than the Cambodian Crusher, shit happened. All of the sudden the rig started slippin the wrong way, straight into the rice paddy, full of rainy season goodness. Part user error part bad road part car waaaaaaay too big to be cruising in that hood, part all three combined for a late afternoon mess. I can try and explain how stuck we was, but instead of making yall brainiums work hard I have provided some lovely photos of the whole shebang later.
Ok, now even with 4 Wheel Drive on this bad boy, we were soooooo off kilter and the bottom of the paddy is soooooo much mud, there wasn't much luck getting out with a lil bit of help. Now my all time favorite part of the experience was immediately after we ended up in the ditch. Having been in quite a few scrapes like this growing up, I pretty much know the car A. would not explode and 2. not explode and everythang would be A-OK soon enough. Guess who didn't....
My Khmer amigos. Now one has to remember my previous ramblings about the Moto Madness here, and how very few drive a car. Well imagine a car full of people who rarely ever drive in one, and even rarelier fall into a ditch in one. As soon as the car stopped, my friend the Dancebot Chada, freaked and pretty much jumped out the car right into the water, yelling for everyone else to do the same. I was trying to explain that things were actually alright, and if people wanted to end up on dry land, all they would need to do is actually get out my door. Guess what happened. Yup, nobody understood, except Joan my Belgian amigo, and they all pretty much abandoned ship right into the rice paddy. It was pretty funny.
After a few attempts of trying to hammer the Crusher out frontways and backways, to no avail, the village people began cruising by to see whats with all the commotion. Pretty soon we had the entire village, and their cousins, and cousins cousins coming over to see how the barang (me) got a car in the paddy. We began to discuss strategery, with the rest of the Sweatistan krew and figured to get Benji, el Jefe, behind the wheel and the rest of us doing work after it, pushing knee deep in rice paddyness and at least ankle deep in mud, which by the way is extremely squishy between the toes.
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| Sometimes it Takes a Legit Frenchman to Get Things Unstuck. |
Next, people all started lending a hand, from getting wood planks to jam under the tires for traction, to help push, or just moral support of hanging out sans shirt looking radical(which was quite a few see below plz). After pushing quite a bit with many hands and little success, the new friends called in probably the only truck big enough to pull out the Crusher to the rescue. As this bad boy comes rolling in, it too almost falls into the paddy. Which would have been shitty for us, but probably pretty funny to read for yall.
Anywho, we get the cars attached (by metal wire which was attached to each car via being tied around a wrench, one of which got torched the first go round FYI) and with the truck pulling forward, the Crusher crushing backward, and as many people that can get a hand on the vehicle pushing, plus a few on the sides trying to weigh down the airborne wheel for traction we achieved momentous success!!!! Really it wasn't all the momentous, just a car out of a ditch, but it felt pretty awesome and pretty sure everyone was super stoked to have been a part of the group effort to liberate the Crusher, just in time for a nice Cambodian sunset and a not so nice and somewhat dangerous drive home.
We made it safe and sound back the the command center known and shared a couple of luke warm beers, laughing, crying, and laughing again about the level of fun had that day. It was pretty awesome, no joke.
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| Before the madness, we caught this lil one taking the cows for a stroll! |
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| Backways. | |
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| Frontways. | |
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| OnLooking With Authority! |
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| Check the Road, Pretty Tight Confines for the Crusher. |
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| Awaiting Reinforcements. (ps This dude is my fave) |
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| Group Fun!! |
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| As I previously mentioned this guy is the fucking best. Just making sure everything goes according to plan. Pretty sure he stood like this the entire time. |
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| Yup! | |
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| Made it out Just in Time For a Beaut of Khmer Sunset of the Rice Fields. |
