To kill a dog...

Today on the way back from the coast we piled into two taxis. I was in taxi number two, and we were a little late leaving because I left my iPod at the guest house. That misfortune delayed our departure by about fifteen minutes. The ride, for the first hour, was really enjoyable albeit bumpy. I mean, the thing had AC so there's nothing to complain about.

Half way into the trip, I hear the driver honking and fussing about something and feel a sudden swerve. Looking up, I had just enough time to see a large dog disappear behind the front bumper - thud clunk rattle rattle clunk clunk - the dog goes under the car... Driver pulls over to check the damage... I was thinking, "Eh...It's just a dog. We'll be fine. Let's get going." You may think me heartless. Believe me I didn't like seeing the dog get hit, but there are dogs EVERYWHERE here, and as you can see from the picture above, they all look like dingos. In fact our dog looked exactly like this one only tan like a dingo. In fact, I call them the dingo dogs. Does that make their untimely death any easier? .....I have to say yes. Trust me, they're nasty.

So picture a road much like the one above and a dog like the one in the pic (only tan) getting bowled over by a late 90's model Toyota Camry. I got out with the driver to check the damage, mostly to stretch my legs thinking there couldn't be anything wrong. Well....turns out this dingo packed a punch. He totally smashed the front end up and busted a hole in our radiator, water spewing everywhere all over the road.

Now, keep in mind, we are an hour away from the coast, which is remote jungle despite being a tourist destination, so we're really, really remote being this far down the road. It's like rice fields and...well...that's it. I knew we were in for a wait. Fortunately, like everyone else in Cambodia, taxi driver dude has a cell phone and, like every spot in the country no matter how out-of-the-way, he has a clear signal to call. (How many spots in Mobile can I NOT get a signal????) Anyway, having dealt with lame taxi rides before in this country, I knew we'd have to sit it out and wait for a replacement. (Laura, it didn't even approach our taxi experience in '05!)


Indeed we did wait. Driver said an hour, but I knew better. We waited for nearly two. In the mean time, I mulled over the destroyed radiator with the driver. He had no idea what he was doing. Another taxi stopped to offer help - unprecedented here, I assure you - while we wasted away in the tropical heat, our lower extremeties being devoured by the Southeast Asian version of fire ants. He and I actually managed to get the radiator detached, only to find what I told him already, "The bottom corner's missing." I mean, it's not like the guy was gonna weld a new bottom on the thing out there. And he certainly didn't have enough chewing gum to plug that crater. What threw my mind for a loop was when this guy continually went into the rice paddy to collect water to fill the radiator to watch it all leak out - he must have done that ten times. Um...dude...it's got a hole in it. I'll admit, however, that I did have fun playing around under the hood. It reminded me of the good ole days with my grandpa, workin on cars. Here's an insight for you ladies. We men really like doing things like looking under hoods of cars, even when we have NO idea what we're looking at. It makes us feel manly and somewhat in control. Ridiculous, perhaps, but true.


Anyway, the Peters and I waited. They are troopers. How many pregnant ladies do you know willing to sit in the hot sun for two hours without complaining? To pass the time, Ben and I played a game called, "See who can throw a rock between those two palm trees." Neither of us ever did, but it was fun. I think it really confused the rice farmers in the adjacent field; we already gave them something to gawk at merely by our presence, much less by chunking rocks at trees for no good reason.


All in all, I'd have to say it was a typical Cambodian day. "Does that happen to you often???" someone might ask. I'd say, "Well...yes and no." Things LIKE that happen all the time. Now have I ever been in a taxi that hit a dog and busted a radiator? No. Yet it was still very, very unsurprising...


I wonder if they ate the dog??? (seriously...)