Simone in Cambodia: Rent Girl

Signing the rental contract with my thumb print in happier times.

The weirdest thing is how time slows down.  As if your life, normally an HD video, has become a jerky series of photographic stills, missing the movement in between.

He pushes in through the front door of the apartment, shoves me to the ground, grabs a piece of luggage, pulls it into the nearest bedroom, takes the keys from the inside and locks it.

Packing. My luggage strewn around in front of the apartment door.

Thank god I had locked myself out of my bedroom a month before.

Thank god I had put aside a set of spare keys to avoid it happening again.

Thank god I had left all the keys to my apartment at that front door for my real estate agent to collect.

As he runs back to the front door to bolt us both in, I grab all the spare keys, tackle him from behind, push him over, unlock the bedroom, grab my luggage and drag it back out.

I know the luggage will rip.  It’s one of those cheap air bags that need taping so they don’t fall apart mid-flight.  I bought extra so I throw a bag and roll of tape over the balcony, fling myself over my luggage and push it and me through the front door.

The bag does rip as he tries to pull it inward but I’m out and I’m free.

Miyan and his mate, waiting by his tuk-tuk below my balcony.

Miyan, my tuk-tuk driver is waiting below.  It’s four hours before my flight home to Australia leaves, my missing-a-plane neurosis a saving grace this time.  But Mr Khon yells over the balcony and Miyan, visibly distressed, shakes his head.  He won’t go.  Holding his fists together in a symbol of arrest, he shows me what my landlord, a policeman, will do to him if he takes me to airport.

‘Please, Pleeeeeeeeeease’ I beg, sobbing, ‘Please, Miyan.’

My landlord, the owner's brother-in-law, Mr Kohn and his wife.

And maybe it’s our three months together, the difficult conversations via Google Translate, the invite to my farewell party, my gift of a helmet when his was stolen or the bottle of bourbon when his mother died, but the dear man turns around on the bike and we start off towards the airport.

Now my panic finds a new focus.  Under Cambodian law, I can be stopped at the airport if I try to leave owing money – which Kohn believes I do.  One phone call and I won’t be going home.  I never thought I’d even think this but I have to ring the Embassy.

‘Find me the number!  Get them to call me!’ I yell through the phone at my neighbour’s daughter.  She does both but whether it’s the stress or surrounding highway noise I can’t hear.  I get Miyan to turn around.  Back we go towards home and the Embassy.

The Oz Embassy in Phnom Penh.  Remind me never to slag off our consular staff again.

Outside, a bank of Khmer faces inside the glass security wall watch me still sobbing into the phone.  Suddenly a calm voice jumps in.

Simone, this is Clint.  I’m going to jump in here. Where are you now?  Do you want to come in for a quick chat?

Minutes later I am inside, explaining the situation.  How I had a rental contract that was very favourable to any tenant leaving early.  How that contract was not the standard one used by the real estate agent, but one supplied by the landlord himself.  How I’d left apartment paying months’ more electricity, water, Internet and rent than I owed.  How my neighbour had told me that my landlord did speak English, could do basic arithmetic and all else was a ploy to rip me off.

How, just now, my landlord had attempted to lock me and my baggage inside my apartment and threatened to arrest my tuk-tuk driver.

Clint sighs.  He tells me:

Wealthy Cambodians are a tiny minority, and while extremely unpleasant, are not representative of the Khmer people. ‘Yeah, I know, I teach them.’

This is a country in which written contracts are meaningless.  ‘He’ll understand whatever his brother’s cousin’s friend told him.’ ‘Yeah I know, my PhD was in intercultural negotiation.’

Khon would not have the power to arrest Miyan.  ‘Maybe 10 years ago but now...  Everyone’s a policeman but they don’t have any power.’

The ‘kidnap/extortion’ attempt is a common occurrence so they generally recommend women rent from landlords accustomed to foreigners. [And here I was thinking it’s such a nice, safe country].

And the best news:

It is extremely unlikely I’ll be stopped at the airport.  ‘Call me if they do. It means something that the Australian Embassy is watching.’

Miyan, my wonderful tuk-tuk driver, and the hero of this story. In front of my workplace.

Reassured I leave.  Miyan has transferred all my luggage from the ripped bag to a new one.  I am so blessed in my drivers.  We get back on the road to the airport, and then,

I suddenly realise what my neighbour meant.  She’d gone to my apartment and negotiated with the owner.  She’ll return my luggage if I return the keys.

My carry-on luggage is still there.  In my apartment.  All my jewellery and all my work qualifications.

I ring my real estate agent, Sim.  He is horrified.  He will meet me at the apartment.  We will get the rest of my luggage. I am blessed in my neighbours and real estate agents as well.

But Miyan is scared.  “Near, near” I tell him, and we drive to an intersection close by my apartment. We’re in the tourist area but there are no motorbike-taxis. I’m running and raving like a mad woman and finally a passer-by agrees to drop me around the corner. 

Just then, Sim appears on the back of a motorbike, holding my carry-on luggage.  His very young colleague doing the driving is obviously shaken, his face grey with shock.  My luggage is slashed and I wonder what that ogre has threatened him with.  

On the way to the airport, Miyan is angry.  ‘Mr Khon’ he says, shaking his fist.  ‘$200.’  Another threat. This one several times Miyan’s monthly salary.

Me in a tuk-tuk with the apartment owner, going bath tub shopping.

At the airport, Miyan and I hug, crying.  I empty my wallet and give it to him but nothing is going to make up for this experience.  I tell him, I’ll call from Australia.

‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ I say at the check-in counter.  ‘My landlord tried to kidnap me.’ 

Khon has rung Immigration.  There’s a load of weird questions to which I lie.  Yes, I’m coming back. No, it’s an emergency visit, my mother is very ill.  But I’m through. 

Almost.

Past immigration, there is security. I look at my carry-on and wonder what they could have added.  Heroin dealers visit our street every night, a high-pitched drum sounding their arrival.  I ask security if I may borrow a metre of their floor. Sitting down I pull everything out.  I check the lining of my bag.  I check every hem of my clothing.  As far as I can ascertain, I’m clean.

In KL, I put a card behind the bar and got drunk.

It’s over.  I survived.

So did Miyan.

My wonderful neighbours: Aijm and her daugher, Asia.

Aijm's gorgeous daughters, Zeinur and Asia, at the Cambodian circus in Siem Reap.  

Thank you Miyan.  And Sim, Aijm and Zeinur. So blessed in my friends.

May you get happily home too.

Simone


NB: This happened in July 2015, at the end of 3 months stay in Cambodia, so the post is not in chronological order. I am now in Saudi Arabia!