I have decided there is no way I am going to drive a moto
here. I like my head and limbs just the
way they are, attached and in one piece.
That said, I have to rely solely on others for my day to day
transportation needs: getting to work, the market, the restaurant my friends
are waiting at, Shine to volunteer with the girls, etc. I have a fairly good system set up, but there
are always glitches, which leads me to the subject of my post: moto and tuk tuk
drivers.
As far as problems go, these are pretty minor. Absurdly annoying, but in the whole scheme of
things, minor. In the mornings, I have a few drivers to choose from. At one point, I tried to set up a daily
agreement with one, but he wanted an absurd amount of money, so I started using
Mr. Smiley (I never did get his name, even when I asked him in Khmer, he just
smiles.) Mr. Smiley was pretty good. He
was a careful driver, but not a turtle.
Things were going well. Then he
decided that driving down durian street and by the stinky market every morning
wasn't enough of an assault of my senses.
So he added the stinky river and the worst road in the city. Ot joe jet, Mr. Smiley, ot joe jet. Wanting to give him another shot, I showed
him the way I like to go. It bypasses
the stinky market, goes nowhere near durian street, and the roads are nicely
paved. He went that way for a day,
before he found a way to again take me by a new stinky market, and along the
second worst road in the city. I was
getting more and more irritated every day, telling him to turn, while Mr.
Smiley just smiled and ignored me. Then
one day, a wonderful thing happened. He wasn’t
there in the morning. I was free to pick
another driver, and not feel guilty. Then
a second wonderful thing happened, the new driver charged me less. It was glorious. But it only lasted for two weeks.
For the past two days, Mr. Smiley has been back. And when I apologize, and say other driver
cheaper, he, you know, smiles, nods his head, and then looks like I kicked his
puppy as I go with another driver. I
wish my Khmer was better, so I could explain that a) he doesn’t go the way I
like, and b) he charges me more than I want to pay now. It doesn’t look like he will ever understand
either of those factors, so I am left with apologizing to him every day for the
foreseeable future. Awesome.
Then there is Mr. Beep Beep, my tuk tuk driver. At first I was calling him Mr. Honky in my
head, then realized that just doesn’t sound right…
He takes me to my volunteer job and home after, and it is
quite nice and relaxing to sit back and enjoy the sights of the city. And to figure out a way to try not to focus
on the fact that Mr. Beep Beep is trying to kill me. I am fairly certain that he thinks honking
his horn emits a force field, thereby protecting the tuk tuk from oncoming
traffic. It really is the only
reasonable conclusion after driving with him.
That, or he thinks he gets paid extra for each honk. It has now become comical, and I am waiting
for the day that the horn sticks, a la “Little Miss Sunshine.” I just hope I have either my camera or my
phone around to document it when it happens…
Other than these minor problems, life here is wonderful as
always.
