kampot smiles better

kampot smiles better
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

good help is hard to find

After You left I got Mad. Mad is the electrician. Then D asked La to send over Da to set up the internet. He got it working, then he said he would send me the bill by email. he said they would turn off the service until they were paid. As he was leaving I asked how I could get the bill by email if the service was turned off. He thought for a moment and then said he would deliver the bill personally. I shouted for Joy, as he passed on his moto. He, as luck would have it, has been looking after Lucky’s pipes. So I had Joy to look at my shower. He recommended a water pressure pump. I showed Mao how to sand the new shelves by doing half of them myself. Then he took over and did half the rest of the job. I then had to decide whether to have a massage by Touch or Ouch across the street at “Massage by the Blind $4/hour”. I hired a carptinter to do the bar shelves, his name is Nok. They don't know what carpinters are; they call them 'woodmen'. So play with that one.

how much do I owe You?

I had to fire our contractor before he had finished painting the insides of the hotel. He was doing a terrible job and a lot of local expats said he was overcharging and he simply could not understand why we wanted him to pull out the mold infested 1/8” plywood ceiling in room six; he wanted to paint over it. So we had to figure out how much of the job was done and how much we owed him. This was the most stressful day I’ve had in Kampot. He was convinced he was 90% done. I would be generous in suggesting that he was almost halfway done. The main problem arose as he started painting room six before he had finished downstairs. Room six requires a total gutting, not just for the mold but the electrics are all fucked and the floor is sinking. He seemed to think it was amusing that I insisted on taking down the plywood, and I decided to fire him. It was just down to negotiating a price for the shoddy job he had already completed. The original contract for all the indoor painting was $2100. We had given him a $400 deposit to start the work. I asked my manager to find out how much the paint cost ($380) and how much his workers were paid per day ($5 for the supervisor, $.75 for the others) and I began to get an idea of what was going on. They had worked four days, sometimes only two or three workers, never on time, long lunches, and off by five. They splattered paint on the tile floors, ruined a lot of furniture which they used instead of ladders (even though I loaned them my new ladder), poured paint down our drain (clogging it) and didn’t mask off any of the light fixtures. So he wants $1000 on top of the deposit. We have our “fixer” Mr Sovaan, an ex KR who was doing the books for the FCC mediate and he keeps taking the contractor’s side, saying we had agreed to pay and he was almost done. I was smiling all the time, explaining that we needed to finish the electrics before we painted and just needed to sort the expenses. Long story short, we agreed to pay $500 and let them take the remaining paint. The contractor’s name is Mr You. So I owe You nothing...

another bridge story

When Paul was visiting with his girl Vero, one of his old drivers stopped by the hotel. Paul was the manager of the BMC for two years and everyone knows him. So he introduces me to this Khmer that used to drive guests up to the top of Bokor Mountain in the BMC’s 4 wheel drive. He didn’t speak much english and Paul said he was probably insane, but also that he was the last person to destroy the bridge in Kampot. He set the charges and blew the bridge as the KR were about to take Kampot. I had always assumed that the B52’s had taken out the bridge back in ‘69. Now it just needs an overloaded salt truck...

badminton

kampot
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.