Every afternoon I ride home with a regular motodteuk driver. He seems nice, friendly, and knows a lot of shortcuts. Alas he doesn’t speak English, but we seem to be communicating just fine.
Anyway this particular afternoon as he was taking me home he suddenly stops. He started speaking to me in Khmer about something...lucky I know a few words including bike and wheel so I quickly figured out that we had a flat back tire. Now what do I do? I‘m suck on the side of road with a moto that won’t be going anywhere quickly (we weren’t near a tire place like the last time I experienced a flat tire with a friend) and I have no idea what I need to do. Do I get another moto? What do I pay? Where am I?
So I turn to my moto driver, held up my phone and said “bpoo-uk maak” and called a friend to help with the communication between myself and my moto driver. My driver organised another moto to come for him to continue to drive me home on. Certainly was interesting.
This was also the day I started to feel sick, and along with having a blistery moto exhaust burn on my leg a trip to the pharmacy was in order. With a little Khmer in my head and my English to Cambodian dictionary in my bag I bravely went where I have not gone before. Thankfully I can say in Khmer that I have a sore throat and I have a sore leg. Was able to communicate to get Royal D and lozenge without too much trouble. The Cambodian dictionary did come in handy with getting a bandage for my leg...and there was a bit of her showing me things and me saying “O’tay…..tom tom…..jaa.”
When I finally got home I was rather impressed with myself. It’s all about taking risks and having a go….something that I find challenging but am slowly trying to do more and more each day.
