We have moved in. It certainly didn't happen as we expected, that's for sure. But eventually it did happen. We signed an agreement with our landlord on September 22 stating that we would pay the deposit then, but rental payments wouldn't actually start taking place until September 29. All seemed well.
That is until we got back into the city on the 29th, and couldn't get a hold of our landlady for the life of us. True, it was a national holiday – but a deal's a deal right! Apparently not. By the time 6pm rolled around and we still hadn't heard from Dat, our landlady, we finally booked ourselves into a hotel room and felt absolutely and completely sorry for ourselves.
We slept the night near the riverside just thankful that we weren't lugging our backpacks around with us anymore. Then we slept.
When we woke up the next morning, our hundreds of calls the day before paid off. Our landlady was on holidays, but her dad was able to swing by to let us in. Steve pulled our bags into the house the Cambodian way – hoist everything up over the balcony – and try not to hit any powerlines.
The place was a mess, and the landlady still had half of their earthly possessions in our spare bedroom. But…at least we could move in to our room and the rest of the house.
So we went shopping for cleaning supplies and a broom, and got busy. Three hours later, the years of fingerprints, spiderwebs and cooking grease were virtually gone and we were much happier to be in Cambodia. We cheered our efforts by buying bicycles and Gin and Tonics and a mars bar. Alas there are some comforts in Cambodia!
