While getting a few small repairs done to the tuk-tuk, we decided to see if there were any restaurants nearby with some tempting vegan options.
First, Some Sub-Par Mechanic Work 👨🔧
After exiting one of the government ministries, I went to start the tuk-tuk and snapped the starter cable. I was able to get it started by having my wife trigger the mechanism on the engine while I activated the starter motor, but because I already had another cable in a poor state, I decided we should pop over to the Piaggio dealer for some spare parts.
Every time these guys do work they always screw something up, so I prefer to order parts by mail and work on my tuk-tuk at home. However, when we are at the dealer they always insist to install the items because labor is free there. Well, every time I do this I regret it, and this day was no different. The guy immediately yanked my old cable out without taping the new one to to the end of it so that the new cable can follow the path of the old one.
When I saw this I bit my lip and walked away because I know it's almost impossible to weave a cable through all that sheet metal in the same path as the original because the spaces are too tight. After viewing a brand new tuk-tuk left to take rainwater directly into the uncovered engine, I walked back to my tuk-tuk and found one of the mechanics arguing with my repair guy because he was having trouble routing the new cable because he didn't know the tape trick that any amateur home mechanic knows.
At this point, I just decided I will let them finish up and I'll try to reinstall the cables correctly when I get back home. Well, I couldn't even have imagined they would leave the tuk-tuk jack and tools laying in the corner of the shop after forgetting to place them back in their compartments. Well, I now have a cable that's so short it lifts my floormat off the ground and half my tools are missing, that is the standard of workmanship in this country, few people take any pride in their work.
Bamboo Vegetarian Restaurant 🍜
What should've been a 15-minute quick job replacing a few cables dragged on for more than an hour, and eventually the mechanics took a lunch break without telling us, extending the job by a few more hours, so we decided to leave and go to nearest vegetarian restaurant on the map. From the outside it looked like there hadn't been a customer here in years, and on the inside it felt equally abandoned. Luckily the food was fresh and tasty though, and the portions enormous.
The ladies had all been craving hot-pot, and I was happy to see this place had various noodle soup dishes, not technically a hot-pot style restaurant, but very similar in taste and flavor. I played it safe with fried rice because I had been stricken with panic attacks the previous night, and spend a good portion of my time in the bathroom hugging the toilet. I didn't expect the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ask for $1,200 USD to get married, and in all the weeks the guy coached us through the process, he failed to mention we'll need to randomly produce nearly a year's worth of life savings.
Well, luckily in the end I asked him to be 100% certain he could get me the K-Visa if we pay the bribe for a Cambodian marriage certificate, and low and behold he backtracked on everything he said before. He told us the K-Visa wasn't possible because I am not ethnically Cambodian, and of course we reminded him that we already knew that and had told him before that was our problem, but that he said he was more informed on the laws than me. I just feel lucky to have only paid him $80, the US Embassy $150, and then probably another $200 for diesel, food, and hotels.
At least we didn't pony up the $1,200 USD for the useless marriage certificate. It grants me no additional rights in Cambodia, and only serves to help us immigrate to a foreign country as a married couple, something we don't need because we already have a Suriname marriage certificate. Well, in the end the Ministry of Foreign Affairs half-apologized for not having his facts straight before inviting us to Phnom Penh, but of course didn't offer to refund the money he collected from us. He then deleted his Telegram chat history with us and stopped communication.
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