The rain stopped me from a walk to the post office the day before. I also needed a break from dragon shipping disappointment. Had I known I would LOVE the Cambodia Post so much, I would not have worried so much! We arrived, and after they eyed my box, informed me that it was too large, and they would re-pack its contents into a Cambodia Post box. All items had to be shipped in a Cambodia Post box. I sighed, opened my box, pulled out the dragon and let them see for themselves what I was dealing with. They tried – unsuccessfully – to put it into their regulation Cambodia Post box. And then, magically, they handed it back to me and said to put my dragon back in my box. They would cover my box with Cambodia Post boxes! I could have kissed them. All of them.
They got to work covering my box with another layer of Cambodian cardboard, and asked me where I got the dragon. We explained what happened, and they smiled when I repeatedly thanked them for their help. Shipping cost a little more than what the dragon cost in the first place, it has enough cardboard around it to hopefully survive the slow boat home, and should arrive in about 2-3 months. Yay!
me: Ohmigod, it’s like the weight of a dragon has been lifted off my shoulders!
Andrew: More like the bulk of one…
After the post office, we walked through the Central Market, got bus tickets to Takeo, lunch, and then waited for what felt like forever at the very crowded and busy station for our bus.
A fairly painless two hours later, we arrived in Takeo and were immediately bombarded by tuk-tuk drivers. Per our tuk-tuk rule, we never agree to a ride when someone hounds us. Usually we stroll around until we find one lounging in his ride and we ask him for a lift. Also, we thought it might be possible to walk to the Volunteer Center. Not only did the tuk-tuk drivers get on the bus before we got off, they asked us a couple of times while we got our backpacks, and then drove their tuk-tuks up to us four meters away from the bus to ask again. As Andrew laughed about later, I do admit, I kinda lost it.
me: Why you ask 5 times if we want tuk-tuk?
tuk-tuk driver: I want to know if you need tuk-tuk.
me: ONE time, you ask if I need tuk-tuk. I said NO. TWO times, you ask if I need tuk-tuk. I said NO. THREE times, you ask if I need tuk-tuk. I said NO. FOUR times you ask if I need tuk-tuk. And I SAID NO! NOW FIVE TIMES?!? FIVE TIMES YOU ASK IF I NEED TUK-TUK!?!? NOOO!!! (and maybe, ok, I did, pretend to physically pull my hair out of my head at this point)
The tuk-tuk driver laughs. I turn around to more laughter and it’s another tuk-tuk driver and I point to him and say “YOU TOO! NO TUK TUK!” and he laughs too, and they leave us alone.
And then we got lost walking.
But then the only foreign tuk-tuk driver passes us by, turns around and asks where we’re going. He’s from New Futures (where we were headed), and gives us a ride to what turned out to be a couple of kilometers to the center. Even if Jake hadn’t pulled up, you know I would have stubbornly walked 2 kilometers with the 50 pounds of backpack weight on my back instead of tracking them down for a ride.
