I am going to move.

I currently live in this palace style free-standing villa with three floors, four bedrooms with four bathrooms, a giant living room, a big western styled kitchen, a garage, a balcony and a rooftop which includes a bamboo hut and an open air shower (which is a piece of heaven, by the way). And it costs me $550 per month. On my own.

But I also took over The Flicks Community Movie House in April, which is running pretty great. There I am paying rent for the building too and my idea was to create and renovate a total of three bedrooms which could be rented out. Including a shared bathroom and kitchen. Since these construction works came to an end last week and my own housekeeper made everything shine again, I realized: I love this space!

Why am I keeping on to a palace, while I am at the movie house about 85% of my time anyway? It doesn’t enable me to fully use and enjoy the palace, right?

And by deciding to give up the palace, I’ll be moving in into The Flicks building pretty soon. There I can continue to give my massage therapy sessions in one of the downstairs rooms, without always having to commute home every day. And it’s not really that I will be living at my work place, I can easily close up shop at the movie house and walk downstairs to my own apartment.

And by moving in down the movie house, I can be there more, as I am slowly transforming it from a movie house to a community house. I hope to add morning hour yoga classes to the schedule too, as there is a high demand for affordable yoga classes (with air conditioning!) (Therefore wanted: yoga teacher(s)). I also would like to facilitate the movie room for conversational Khmer language classes for expats in the afternoons.

The open area of The Flicks front ‘yard’ will become my ‘root top’ area that I will still need on a daily basis and the community house will get its own side entrance to its first floor.

It’s better to spend a few hundred dollars a month on making The Flicks place a really cool place, than to spend rent on both places without really being able to enjoy one of them, right?

Today I noticed my landlord (of the palace) about this. He wanted me to keep paying rent for the remaining three months of my lease, however I had to explain him that my 3-months deposit actually covers my last three months. “No that is not true.” Well, that’s what the contract says, hehe. Oops for him. Great for me.

Instead of decoration the ground floor apartment of the movie house as a guest house apartment, I can now slowly take my time to move stuff from the enormous palace and make that apartment totally my apartment. I am already loving it.

If you possibly know people that would love to live in my current palace, feel free to contact me. It’s up for rent!

And yes, The Flicks apartment will get an outside open air shower. I just can’t live without a piece of heaven.

It was thanks to my online fund raising event to collect enough micro-credits (as in loans or donations) that I got over US$7.426 in from supporters all over the world. And thanks to some international media-support too!

It was in this last week when I signed the rental lease for the building and paid the last deposits for the full purchase of the company. I worked behind the curtains on my marketing plans: almost every hotel/guesthouse/B&B in Phnom Penh will now have a poster for the movie house hanging around at their reception and over 2,000 copies of next week movie schedule are spread around highly populated places in town.

Earlier today the brand new (and first ever) website of The Flicks was launched too. Have a look at it and tell me what you think. I am very happy that everybody can now see the full weekly movie schedule online, download the PDF-flyer, watch all the trailers online and even make reservations for a certain movie via this website!

In the coming days the Khmer New Year will be celebrated by all the local Cambodians. That means that most bars, restaurants and even all banks will be closed for three days. If I believe all the stories, Phnom Penh will look like a ghost town. That’s why I had already planned a special event at The Flicks for this weekend. From April 15 to 17 I am screening a non-stop marathon of Seinfeld episodes from noon to 6pm.

And tomorrow, Friday April 15, I’ll be playing a FREE screening at 7pm of the absolutely must-see and best-ever documentary on backpacking and traveling the world: A Map for Saturday.

What’s next? Well, I have little plans to change things big time at the movie house, however I do think that the current bar has to be enlarged to accommodate more people with a place to seat, to hang around before or after the movies and create a social hub for all local expats that enjoy going to the movies.

The local media also ran a little story on me taking over The Flicks this week. It’s not the Phnom Penh Post, of which you (look at the title) would expect some local news (but they barely focus on the city at all!), it was on the popular Expat Advisory Services website.

The opening slate, I started this blog about, is the spoken introduction of the show, which is weekly done by another figure who gets a bit of attention from the show host Peter Anthony Holder. And of course it was to support my fund raising event to Save The Flicks in Phnom Penh. And so you know, this podcast has over 200,000 listeners per week!

In this latest edition he also talks with the following people:

• Tea Krulos is a blogger who writes about the phenomenon of people who dress up as superheroes, who have sprung up in many cities. His blog is entitled Heroes Of The Night, which is also the title of his upcoming book.
• Chez Pazienza is a veteran network news producer and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. He’s also a new media consultant.
• Darren Taylor is best known as Professor Splash. He’s broken his own world record by diving from a 36-foot platform into a kiddie pool with just 12 inches of water. He is the world’s greatest and most decorated shallow water diver.

You can listen to the show online, subscribe to it through his blog or even in iTunes. Or just click play below (after the Opening Peter Anthony talks about me at 2min40secs):

In case you don’t want to listen to an entire hour, because you are way too busy, here is what Peter Anthony Holder said about me:

“I had Ramon on the program a little while ago talking about his other entrepreneurial business which is cooking tours through Europe. He’s a very interesting guy indeed, so if he puts his mind to doing this and saving this theater, I know it will work out.”

Thanks for having me on the show, Peter Anthony!

Next to that, the Dutch regional newspaper De Stentor published a little story about my latest online adventure to Save The Flicks. It was journalist Sander Lindenburg who did this little write-up which also mentioned on the historic fact that I started Letmestayforaday.com exactly ten years ago.

And a side note to this: Sander and De Stentor were both the first to give attention to Letmestayforaday in March 2001, and eventually kicked off a global buzz on the internet.

Have you already made your small contribution to save the cinema theater in Phnom Penh? It can be a loan or a onetime donation, check out http://www.timetohelp.me for all the info.

So far this amount has been contributed:

The only cinema in town which targets the local expats with western-orientated blockbusters, art house, kids movies, animations and the classics, is The Flicks.

When you arrive there you take the stairs to the second floor, walk through a hallway and end at a bar where there is always somebody to greet you. That’s where you pay your admission to the movie ($3.50) and of course a drink and a bucket of hot buttered popcorn. The bar is in a small lobby and connects to the movie room. Well, here you can see it:

Also here: no cinema seats. No, everything is more relaxed than that. You can lie down on two rows of comfortable soft cushions or two rows of rattan couches with pillows, and watch that 5-meter (16 feet) wide screen with an amazing sound.

Since my first visit to The Flicks I was in love. The simplicity, the fact that it was all created and organized for the love of movies and for the movie lovers even made me get the crazy idea of starting a similar cinema myself.

And then suddenly, early this March, the message came out saying that The Flicks was going to close.

Sadly we are moving from The Flicks and will be closing our cinema. It was great fun and we got to meet an amazing bunch of people from all walks of life, and we will miss it very much.

The couple that are currently running the movie house, Martin and Jeanette, can’t keep up with the cinema as they got real requirements during the day (real jobs). And that’s when it all stops.

And something like that starts nibbing on me. Very simple. This can’t be true. It shouldn’t happen. Et cetera. And after a long conversation with Martin and Jeanette it wasn’t even such a weird idea to take over The Flicks in Phnom Penh.

But come up with that large bag filled up with money that is necessary. Especially when you imagine all the equipment. And the deposit for the rent. I could never just put that bag of money on the table! And that’s when I came up with the idea of starting a little online micro-credit fundraising event. If all my Facebook-friends and Twitter-followers could lend me $10 I’d be ready to go! And it’s a loan, so after 6 months everybody gets it back.

And now you can even choose to change that loan into a donation. After 6 months that will become a micro-credit on Kiva.org, a worldwide active micro-credit organization that helps small businesses with micro-credits. A perfect good cause, don’t you agree?

So (if I haven’t spammed you about it yet in any online-personal way) check that wallet of yours and see if you can miss ten bucks. Or a bit more. Then surf to http://www.timetohelp.me, the site I have created for this purpose. Thank you very much!

The counter is currently at:

Update: I am going to buy the cinema. That’s for sure. And I am going to love it!

Afterwards you can only agree with my words: “Who wouldn’t move here?”

Stupidity Number 3:

When flying back from Amsterdam to Phnom Penh I had a really bad flight on the first leg to Kuala Lumpur. I couldn’t sleep at all on the plane, making me this totally tired traveler walking around Kuala Lumpur International Airport on my way to the gate for the next flight to Phnom Penh. I sat down right next to the entrance, almost being able to touch the security x-ray machines and fall asleep.

Only to wake up hours later in a totally deserted area. The screens were showing how my connecting flight had already left an hour ago! Stupid me! Did nobody see that sleeping guy next to the gate’s entrance? My luggage was taken off the flight, but I guess nobody bothered to wake me up to ask if I needed to be on that flight. It wasn’t that I was not at the gate or something.

Oh bummer! So I went to the desk of the airline, where they told me that I had indeed missed my flight. My luggage could be picked up at the handling station downstairs and I could get on a next flight – the next morning! That wasn’t going to work out for me at all, as I was supposed to arrive in Phnom Penh today. Seriously, my cat was on that flight to Phnom Penh and I wasn’t! I HAD to be in Phnom Penh today to pick up this pretty jet lagged cat and feed him something!

So I stormed to the desk of AirAsia, knowing that they still had a flight scheduled for later in the afternoon. I paid some $60 for this flight, got the tickets and a ride to the other airport. As AirAsia didn’t actually fly from Kuala Lumpur Int Airport, but from some smaller air field about 30km out of town. Oh well! I made it. Arrived in Phnom Penh before nightfall and got my cat safely from the cargo terminal. Before finally heading home.

Lesson learned: do never fall asleep before boarding time of your air plane. It doesn’t matter if you are at the gate or not…

Stupidity Number 4:

It’s less of a big story, but how stupid could I be earlier this year. I was about to visit a friend of mine in the North of The Netherlands and enjoy some festival for a few days. Before taking off I had to fill up the gas tank of my car for this ride. At the gas station they told me their pin-machine was broken and they could only accept cash.

No problem, so I drove to an ATM and got myself €70 of cash. That could easily save me for a few days up North too. I took my card back, jumped back into my car and headed back to the gas station. Once there I looked into my wallet and – right! I didn’t take the money from the machine!

I guess I was so excited for this 2.5 hours drive and the coming week, that I totally forgot to take out that €70 from the ATM! I did drive back to the machine, but I guess I made someone else very happy with my donation. I had to get another €70 from the machine and felt so bloody stupid.

Stupidity Conclusion:

From all these big stupidities of mine in the last year I now can draw a few conclusions: 3 out of 4 stupidities end up with me in a car.
All of them involve some form of transport or traveling.

I traveled quite a bit in 2010 and I won’t stop doing that in 2011 for sure, but I do now know that I should eliminate driving a car as much as I can in 2011. It just makes me do stupid things.

Really.

Stupidity Number 2:

Let’s stay in Australia, because that trip was quite an adventure. Every night we’d ride into an unknown town to find a place to camp. Most times it was at commercial caravan parks, but sometimes we could also just park our van in a communal park that also provided shower and toilets.

Perfect.

So we found our spot, somewhere in the town of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales (in the southeast of Australia). The next day we would end up in Sydney, finishing our great ride through Oz.

And there was this nice park, named Wilks Park. It had a green patch and a toilet building and we could park there. But Ramon found it more interesting to drive into that park a little bit more, as there was a little dirt track going trough the trees, which should end up near the small Murrumbridgee River. And I’d rather stay overnight along a river than next to a toilet building, so I ignored Antal’s request to take it easy and just park on the grass near that building and I drove the van into the dirt track.

Don’t worry; it’s just a dirt track. Look, it’s all fine.

It did become a bit bumpy here and there and it was clear it had some rain in the past days. But if I’d just drive slow, there would be no problem.

I think I drove about 1 km into that track and still there was no river in sight.

Antal wanted me to return, but I said it could be a circle track, as it swirled around and might just simply end up at that toilet building again. Alright, Ignorant Ramon continued until I stopped.

There was a pool of water in the middle of the road. I overlooked the situation. You never know how deep a pool of water is on a dirt track. That’s what I know in general. But if I drove along the sides and get enough speed, we’d just rush through it easily. Right? Wrong. There I went, pushed the gas and drove along the side of that two meters wide pool.

And got stuck halfway.

Slowly the van tilted to the right, in the center of the pool. Uhm…That’s not good.

Antal was throwing names at me again, but also I saw our entire van disappear in that pool. What if it just turned the van to the side?! All our stuff would get wet and muddy and that’s not really a good closure to our trip. And we still wanted to sell our nicely kept van in Sydney again…

I should try to get out and asked Antal to hang on the left side of the van to be some leverage (as a slim 23yo lady would be of course). And pushed the pedal again. But instead of going forward, the van slid backwards and tilted even deeper to the right, into the water. Oh, fuck. That was the most reasonable thought I head.

This was wrong.

We needed help. And fast. So I told Antal to stay put with that car while I’d get help. There must be other people camping around here. I have seen their caravans! But with flip-flops you can’t run. I kicked them off and started running. First on the track, but eventually cutting short through the low bush. I don’t remember what I stepped on and yes it had hurt quite much a couple of times, but there were bigger issues at stake.

I screamed for help; somebody should here me. After about ten minutes I found a van with the lights on inside. As I came on screaming one man was already outside. I explained him the situation while catching my breath again, trying the pressure the seriousness of our giant problem.

We were stuck. With our van. In a pool. And the van is tilting. And that’s no good. Can you please help me? Something like that.

The man told me the story of how that happened with him too, just a week ago. Fortunately his wife was around with their giant SUV to pull him out. And that SUV was standing right there too. Great! Can you help us? Yes, he said. But we don’t have a rope to pull. Oh. Damn. F#$k.

I had already spotted another camper nearby. The man would get in his truck as soon as he found his shoes, while I was already halfway to the other van. I knocked the door and this friendly grey couple looked at me through the opened door.

Oh, you are stuck? That’s no good. Our car won’t make it on that track. Where are you from? The Netherlands? That’s such a nice country. But we do have a rope if that can be helpful? Yes. Rope. Helpful. Truck. Pull. Van. Out. Water. We. Happy.

The old man and I walked ahead onto the track with a big flashlight while the truck would follow us a few minutes later. We should be around this corner. Or the next one. Oh, I did drive pretty far. The headlights would still be on and I should see our truck pretty soon. Eventually I called Antal. Here!, she answered in a far distance. Right, there we are. We arrived at our van just when the truck had arrived too. Antal had turned of the lights to save the battery so we were in complete evening darkness. But there was no need to explain the situation, anybody could see that a fool had been at work here.

“That van doesn’t belong on a dirt track, mate!” the old man said. “And you were driving this thing?” the man in the truck asked me. And in the meantime the angered eyes of Antal were hurting on me. Painfully.

Question was: could we get the van out of there? Without it tilting to the right all the way? Possible, both man said. Suddenly we were all three knee deep in the mud, as one person was shining with his light and the other one of trying to get a rope around one of the wheels suspensions. I was the one not knowing what to do at all and tried to hold the van. As if.

Along the track Antal was praying to the sky and to our beloved Jack. And probably cursing me even more.

We should be able to pull out the van backwards, but with the first pull something snapped. Hard.

There we were, Antal and I, both going mental, as we didn’t want any more bad things to happen to the van. We had to continue to Sydney in it, right!

It was the rope that had snapped. But the truck man tried it again. With the old man behind the wheels, where the water was already touching the pedals, the van moved. And it tilted. And it moved backwards. And just at the point where everybody thought it was over, where the car would just splash to one side and everything would be gone – Jack turned straight again. And got out of the pool. There it was. Dripping mud.

The back suspension had had quite a pull. Would everything still work? We were both too shit scared to give it a try and to get this car back to the original spot at the start of the park. So the old man got in and turned the van around. We followed back the truck to the toilet building where we got out. Of course we were totally thankful to our two heroes. And the van seemed to be all right too. However pretty muddy.

We washed our hands and feed at a water pump. And I saw the damage I had created on the sole of my foot. But that wasn’t the worst thing yet.

I found it rather uncomfortable to confront Antal. She had been right the entire time and I was that fool that thought otherwise. Of course.

“So, we should just park right here, next to this building?” I asked.

“Hell no!” she answered. “I am not going to stay in this park any minute longer. Let’s drive into town and get a room in the first hotel we can find. No ten minutes later she walked into Romano’s on Fitzmaurice Street, the first hotel we could find.

And I followed her.

Limping.

I myself wanted to start off with a different kind of list, so that’s how you end up reading the first session of my year lists: My Stupidities of 2010 in a list.

I had to think about it for a while, but ended up with the following events that can be posted at the top of the most stupid things I have done myself – personally – in this year.

Stupidity Number 1:

In April this year I went on vacation to Australia. Together with my Dutch best friend Antal. Together we bought ourselves a nice van (which we named Jack – naming your car was supposed to bring good luck) and drove the entire stretch from West coast Perth to East coast Sydney in only four weeks.

Hold on, road tripping Australia is absolutely not a stupid thing to do!

I even made a little dashboard movie about that trip:

It was quite a lot of driving and a lot of overnights at caravan parks where we certainly would be the youngest people ever to have stayed there. It seemed that only retired Australians stay at these overrated places.

Anyway, let’s get to this first point of stupidity.

I was driving the car on a one-lane road that was sided by lush green trees. That’s basically driving through rural Australia. If there are no trees, there isn’t anything else. And with driving through Australia you always have to keep in mind that traffic is different here. So are the signs on the road. If a sign says T-crossing ahead it actually says that pretty much AT the T-crossing. If you even don’t see that sign, you will be in for a surprise.

And what a surprise I experienced. The road just stopped! We could only go right or left, but the car was still going 95 km/hour and we were very close to the crossing already! So Antal screamed STOP!!! and I hit the brakes immediately.

And of course the van didn’t just stop. It screeched and slipped, but there wasn’t a real signal or an upcoming full stop. I pushed the brakes to avoid slipping even more and heard this sound of the horn of a truck.

There was a fuel truck coming from our right! A fuel truck!

The end of the road was coming very near us, but also did that truck and there was no way that that honking truck driver could stop his road train for us. Ever. (Road trains never stop, actually. It takes them minutes to get going again.).

Finally we stood still. On the middle of the T-crossing. And that truck passed us with an almost thundering sound by a mere meter. Probably less.

Of course Antal threw some names at me. I was to blame, as I was the driver at that moment. We turned right and continued as nothing has happened, but we more focused on the road and its signs than on the lush green trees that surrounded us.
Or Australia’s big nothing.

To be continued with My Stupidity of 2010 – part 2. Stay up to date and receive notices of the next updates in your mailbox.