Driving in Cambodia Update Part 2

 Going from Phnom Penh to Kampot I generally go down Norodom, which turns into National Highway #2, to the turnoff to Takeo, then across a short connecting road to route #3 at Angtasom, which is about halfway to Kampot.

 When I first started making the run I went straight down highway 3 from the airport, but once I discovered route 2 between the capital and Angtasom, I shunned 3 and have only gone back to it a couple times in the past two years. In contrast to 3 which has always been narrow, congested and full of potholes or in the process of being torn up and reconstructed, 2 is wide, well maintained and serves a lot less traffic. It’s not very smooth - you definitely get bounced around a lot - but still, until recently, I was regularly going 100kph on some sections. Lately, as part of my turning over a new leaf, I’m not going much above 80 there.

 About ten kilometers past Angtasom the road splits between Highway 3 which goes directly to Kampot and 31 which takes the long way around to Kampot via Kampong Trach and with a short detour, Kep. I occasionally take route 3 just to see the progress they are making on the road, but it’s often a nerve jangling experience. If you’re lucky and you get there just after the surface has been rollered it’s as smooth, fast and drivable as a new paved road. Two weeks later however, after the big trucks have beat it up and maybe some rain has caused erosion, it’s turned into a washboard, and decidedly a bone-rattling ride in my Camry even going just 25kph.

 Route 31, except for the last 20 km or so before Kampot, is wide, smooth and in some places so lightly trafficked, you don’t see a vehicle for a long distance ahead. I have regularly found myself going 120kph, or sometimes quite a bit more, on 31 without hardly knowing it. I’d look down at the speedometer and think, wow, that’s too fast and force myself to slow down. Now I generally keep it down to 100.

 Lately the trip takes about 3 hours door to door, regardless of which road I take. When the construction of 3 is finished it’ll take barely more than 2 hours. Once I’m in my rhythm I don’t like to stop: I’m driven. I used to regularly take a couple minutes break for a glass of cane juice but now I usually drive right through without stopping. I’ve done it so many times, I have no interest but to get there.

 One thing I like to do is stop at the plant nurseries located on route 2 about a kilometer past Takmao town. There are about 100 stores in a kilometer of road selling a wide variety of plants, not to mention potting soil, etc. It’s a great place to indulge your green thumb.

 If you are inclined to stop, a great place to take a break is the cave at Phnom Trach near the end of the trip. You enter the cave and after about 100 meters you come out into a round green clearing surrounded by near vertical rock. Going off in many directions from the clearing are cave entrances. It’s a cool place to hang out for an hour and it’s only about a kilometer from the highway so easy to get to. There’s a sign in English at the northern end of town that says Kampong Trach Resort. They use the word resort when scenic attraction or recreation site would be more appropriate.

 Whenever I have a companion along - and sometimes on my own - I’ll take the detour to Kep to stop at the Crab Market, a line of about 30 downscale seafood restaurants in a row, located right on the water. For two people it usually costs me about $10 for a half kilo of crab plucked right out of the water, a nice chunk of barbequed fish – they often have rays, which have a smooth creamy texture - a squid or two, rice and drinks . Some restaurants charge a lot more. Kep puts you 25 km from Kampot.

 Still, all told, I don’t really enjoy driving, and haven’t gotten much pleasure from it in quite a while, including when I’m in America where it’s so much easier. There are, in fact, times when it isn’t all that bad; good road, moving slowly, peaceful countryside; but mostly it’s a decided chore. Besides, the experience is beginning to weigh on me. The tension, fatigue and numerous close calls that happen regardless of how safely and calmly I try to drive all add up to a nervy experience.

 Driving is convenient and gives you a lot more leeway and flexibility, but one trade off is that it costs a lot more. It’s now comes to about $18 per trip in gas alone, so when repairs and maintenance are included, the true cost is probably close to $30. (Correction: I was way off in my last article on bus and taxi fares between KP and PP. Competition has brought bus fares down to $3.50, whereas taxi fares have gone up to $6.) Taking passengers helps to pay for the trip but that doesn’t happen all that often.

 Once Highway 3 is finished, the bus lines, at least some, are certain to run a direct bus to Kampot with a travel time not much more than three hours. In that case, since I rarely use the car in Phnom Penh itself, it’ll be hard to justify the extra cost of driving. I’m already thinking of making the trip less often so I might be able to handle one round trip a month on the bus.

 The best news is that rumors of train service abound. The track is now being upgraded from it’s current maximum speed of 25kph. I keep hearing different things, but generally we should have passenger service within a year or two. When finished it’ll go a breathtaking 50 kph and make the trip in about 4 hours. Riding trains is far superior to buses – I’ve always loved trains and ridden the rails in about 14 different countries – for various reasons. It’s a smooth ride through pure countryside rather than past roadside trash and of course you get to move around, rather than be stuck in a small bus seat.

 I took the train from Kampot to Phnom Penh once about 7 years ago while they were still accepting passengers. It was a fun ride with a great snapshot of Cambodian culture, but only if you had your hammock along. There were no passenger coaches, only boxcars. Lying in your hammock you gently flowed with the train’s movement. Without one, you were sitting on sacks of salt or stacks of wood poles for the nine hours it took to go the 175 km. Unloading of the wood was a fun spectacle. As the drop-off point was nearing the train crew moved the wood to a position where it was partly hanging out the door. When the time to offload came, with the train still in motion, the crew frantically tossed out the poles. Needless to say the 100 kilo sacks of salt were offloaded in a more orthodox fashion.

 I recently had an experience that made clear a reason for having liability insurance. I had been thinking about it but been too lazy to get it together. It isn’t all that expensive; the fellow who owned the car before me paid $160 per year; I heard another company charges $400.

 At any rate, as I was pulling out from my space at my local 24 hour parking lot I transferred a little white paint from my fender to the bumper of a new Landcruiser, and took on a little gray paint from it. I was distracted and a bit spaced out, which is happening quite a lot lately. It was totally my fault, so I dutifully left my number. I like keeping that stuff straight and didn’t want to flee and besides cause a problem that would restrict my access to the lot since it’s the most convenient to my house.

 A few days later I get a call from an older man who says his daughter took it to a body shop and they want $80. EIGHTY DOLLARS!!! HOW CAN BE? ONLY A LITTLE PAINT!! Luxury car, he responds, costs more to fix, have to mix paint, etc. I say I cannot believe it, I want to see a document from the body shop. Something about the color combination made me think the Landcruiser was older, so the paint would’ve faded, so maybe it’d take an hour or so to get the right color. Still, shop time here is about $30 per day, so my little paint exchange somehow requires nearly three days to fix. In the event, as it was a new car he didn’t have to mix any paint; there’s certain to be the exact color available at the Toyota dealer.

Next I get a call from the mother, who gives me the same rap about luxury car costs more to fix. I say I think I’m being cheated. Oh no she says, we work for NGO’s we wouldn’t cheat anyone. Well, I say, I want to take it to the garage and talk to them and maybe go to another one to get a second quote. She seems to agree.

 So I return after a week in Kampot and I get a call from the daughter; she has the estimate and wants me to go to the garage immediately and give her $80. Sorry, I respond, I’m not parting with any money until I go to the garage and talk to the repairman. Ok so I commandeer a friend who can translate and decide to take my car to a local garage first; he says he can fix my car for 15,000 riel – less than $4. I ask him what he thinks it’d cost to do the other car, he says probably about the same. Thinking I might have solved my problem, I left his business card at the parking lot and told the daughter to take it there.

 Now I get a call from the son, who actually owns the car (civil servant as you would guess) and tell him I found a place that can do it cheap and I want him to do the work there. He starts going on about how businesses always try to under cut each other. Yeah, sure, one charges $80, the next tries to steal his business by charging $5. I repeat the I’m being cheated line. I say, I did the damage and I will pay but I want it to be fair. Oh no, we don’t want to cheat.

 I head back to Kampot again, meanwhile the guys at the garage say the work has already been done. Why do it for five if you can do it for eighty? I should’ve gone to the $80 shop the first time I had my translator friend with me and finished the job. Anyway I still have to talk to the rip off shop, before I pay.

Up to this time I’d had five or six conversations with various members of the family, on the edge of hot and testy every time, but I decided I really should try to stay calm. I’ve been tending to anger easily lately and it’s really not good regardless of the circumstances, so I made it a point to stay in control and just let it be… it is after all only money.

 Ok we’re off the $80 body shop. I show my car to the boss, without identifying myself. He takes a quick look and says it’s so small, he’ll repair it for free. FREE! Then I pull out his paperwork on the Landcruiser and ask how it could cost so much if the damage to my car is so little. He’s caught red handed. First he says it’s a new car so he had to guarantee the work for two years. Then I ask him exactly what work he did on the car. He says he fixed the bumper and did some work inside the fender, underneath. Inside the fender? Impossible. Mind you, this is a 2008 car which showed no damage to the outside of the fender, and spaced out as I am, I certainly would’ve noticed that. Well then, I had nothing to do with the fender, how much for the bumper only? First he says $30, then maybe $40.

Meanwhile, he’s going on about how money’s not important. Happiness good, everybody happy, money is nothing. Easy for him to say since he’s not the one getting scammed.

Okay, back to the parking lot to meet the woman who’s ripping me off and finish the lengthy saga. It turns out she’s a roly-poly bull dyke. She’s all smiley and friendly as we’re relating the body man’s wild excuses, and bringing up smiley garbage talk to try to justify her scam. My translator friend puts the cost of the bumper as $30 or $40, whereas, in hindsight he should’ve only said $30. She agrees to ‘pay’ $30 of the cost if I’ll pay $50, and is not inclined to bargain. I just kept smiling while coughing up the dough. I paid only about 10 times the true cost; at least I saved $30.

 
I really didn’t want to get a vendetta started – doused with acid? Camry vandalized? - and figured the thieves needed to deal with their own karma. At times I thought of bringing in the police to adjudicate and threatened to do such. I also thought I should tell her I was going to put a hex on her – they love/hate their ghosts in Cambodia – but in the end just let everything slide. As I left the parking lot she stopped to gab with the lot guys. Next time I was there, I said srey jiao – lady thief – and the guys nodded their heads in agreement. She was evidently proud of her scam and bragged about it with the guys. The shop guy on the other hand definitely seemed like a decent guy and uncomfortable in the role of a thief… he offered to fix my car for free!

 
Meanwhile, the most ironic aspect of the whole chain of events was that my car was parked safely and comfortably by my house for a week and I was planning to leave the next day. That afternoon I saw a canopy going up across the alley and was concerned I might not be able to get out next morning, so moved it to the garage for one fateful day. In the event, it was just a birthday party and the canopy was down after a couple hours so the whole mess didn’t need to happen.

 
Meanwhile, I got a great lesson in the value of insurance. With it I would’ve called the adjuster and he would’ve handled the whole affair and she would’ve gotten $5. I had hesitated getting insurance because almost all my driving is outside of the capital and I didn’t think it would work well on the road or in Kampot far from their offices. But what if I’d caused $100 damage and gotten scammed for thousands? I’m getting coverage as soon as I can manage it.