Since yesterday's breakfast was so enjoyable, we repeated it today. Fruit, coffee, and baguettes in the lounge with Torsten and Marin. About an hour into our conversation, Torsten mentioned that they were going to pick up their Thai visas today. Whoops. Guess what we forgot we were supposed to be doing while we were in Phnom Penh?! One of the big things we meant to do here was get our visas for our return to Thailand. Torsten told us that they had to wait for five days to get their visas(!) and that the Consulate only accepted applications until 11:30 am. Since it was already after 10:00, we excused ourselves and ran for the shower. After we got cleaned up, we got together all the necessary photos, money, and passports, and went down to the bikes. Since the Thai Consulate appeared to be about 2 miles away, we decided to ride.

Re's bike started up fine, but for some unknown reason, mine was very reluctant to start. Eventually, it did start, but it wasn't running cleanly. We pulled out onto the road and over the next ten blocks or so, my bike ran progressively worse. It eventually stalled and wouldn't restart. Of course, by now it was 11:00 am and hot, hot, hot in the sun. I pulled out my Swiss Army knife and opened the drain on the carb bowl. Plenty of fuel spilled onto the ground, so I pulled the sparkplug, which appeared fine and sparked brightly. Huh. Since it was now after 11:00, Re made for the Consulate, while I pushed my bike back to the hotel. Before she left, we made sure she had all the paperwork, but I forgot that she also had the room key. So after pushing the bike back to the hotel, I was now sweat-soaked and locked out of the room. I was able to borrow the housekeeper's key to get into the room and cool off for a while.

After an hour or so, Re returned with the good news that not only was she able to forge my signature on my visa application, but also, she was able to sweet talk the official into having our visas ready in only two days. Sweet! We headed out for lunch and then returned to see what was wrong with my bike. We unrolled the tarp, got out the tools, and dropped the bowl off the carb. In the bottom of the bowl, there was a drift of fine, whitish powder, and we also found that the pilot jet was partially blocked. We were able to clean the jet and then reassembled the carburetor. A quick thumb of the starter button, and my bike started up and settled into a nice, even idle. I am puzzled by the crap in the bowl, because we just installed a new fuel filter that claimed to be a genuine Honda part less than a month ago. Oh well, as long as it's running.

Since we already had the tools out and were grubby, it seemed like a good time to get Re's rack welded. We removed her top case and undid the four bolts that secure the rack.



Once we removed it, we could see the extent of the damage, and it was bad. One of the men who works at the hotel pointed us in the direction of a welder, so we walked out to find him. A few blocks from the hotel, we found an area where old motorcycles are made into new motorcycles. Many small shops here take the best parts out of five bikes and make four very good looking bikes out of them. Everywhere, people were painting, polishing, and cleaning up secondhand underbones. We spied a man sitting on the side of the street making a crashed kickstand look like new. Once again, our welder spoke no English, but understood what we needed done.



After he finished the kickstand, he immediately set to work on the rack, and 20 minutes later, he handed us back a freshly welded rack. This time, the repair cost a whole 2.50 USD. Cambodia is very expensive! We tromped back to the hotel and reinstalled the rack and top case. When it breaks again, we'll have to get some steel added, since there's not much left to weld. We headed back to the room to get clean and dirty and then spent some time doing some writing.



Later that evening, we went back out for some more fried calzones before returning to the hotel for a relaxing evening.

4 miles for Re, less than a mile for me.