Another Project with Royal Group

The Royal Group is a holding company headed by an interesting fellow by the name of Kith Meng. Meng is in his early-forties and one of the few stratospheric entrepreneurs here in Cambodia that commands a multi-billion dollar portfolio in banking, broadcast, premium hotels and real estate. Kith Meng's most recent brainstorm was to import forty new E320 Mercedes Benz to Cambodia and serve government, diplomatic and business leaders in the Kingdom. The cars are now on the ground here in Phnom Penh... It is Show Time. It has been a blast working, mostly behind the scenes, with Royal Group helping to put their best foot forward in this new endeavor. Chean Long is the photographer. My roll is creative director.

A couple things should be noted about these images. Many of the international folks that follow this blog have a slower down-load speed that make viewing these images in their pure form too time consuming. We have adjusted the resolution lower to make blog image-capture faster. Secondly, you will find many of these images shot 'wide'. These shots are 'raw' and allow for much tighter framing for final product. The equipment being employed for our work delivers sharpness all the way to peoples eyelashes. What you see below will be enlarged and cropped.

Phnom Penh International Speedway

Today, some friends and I went to a fun - and rather large - go-cart track just outside Phnom Penh. On this trip is Long, my photographer friend, Agi, a very famous (in Cambodia) singer/dancer and my driver, Phea. Long, Agi and Phea drove and I did the announcing.

It's race time! Take a look!

I'll Take My Recession in Asia, Thank You.

Being a small land developer for nearly 20-years has been a real pleasure. I have been blessed with acquiring some wonderful parcels and working with a wide range of talented folks creating some exceptional properties. I feel particularly lucky that all that I have created - up until now - sold well.

Even in the headier days of 2006-2008, I knew investing and developing in Cambodia was risky business. Retained earnings have never been leveraged. I will ride-out the current economic environment debt-free, stable and for the foreseeable future, not making new profits.

Like everybody, these bad times I need to ride-out. It may take a couple years.

For now, I want to be in Asia more than the United States. Things are more dynamic here.

Thakmao

Exploring a suburb of Phnom Penh.

Olympic Stadium

Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh was designed and built in the 1960's before the wheels of this country started to come off. The complex is extensive and rather well designed, but has fallen in deep disrepair. There were several government mass killings here in the mid-seventies. Ghosts play an important roll in this cultures mind set. Where people die or are killed, it is believed here, that is where their Spirit live. This puts this land in a tainted no-mans land for this generation of leadership. Superstition plays an inordinate role in decision making here.

Canadia Tower

Cruising in the Rain

Here in Phnom Penh, we are coming to the tail-end of Monsoon season. When it rains here, it really pours. I love it. Torrents of rain tend to last between :30-minutes and two-hours. There are two types of rain: 'Hard' and 'Real Hard'. No drizzling rain here in this country.

Real Hard + Two-Hours = Flooding. There are dozens of five square-block areas in the city that flood most frequently. My driver, Sok Phea, knows them all and simply avoids these areas when it is really coming down. After an intense deluge, it usually takes only a couple hours for the drainage system to gulp-down the onslaught of water and the flooding is gone. In the mean time, folks go on about their business as if the roads were bone dry.

In this video, a Tuk-Tuk was used to get around. A Tuk-Tuk is a four seat, two-wheel carriage pulled by a 125cc motorcycle and used extensively here. The Tuk-Tuk is the taxi of this city.

Buying and Selling Cars in Cambodia: Part Three

After successfully selling the Mercedes Benz, it was time to make a plan to select a replacement car. I learned authorized dealers here in Phnom Penh that support up-market name plates like Lexus, Mercedes Benz and Audi (no BMW here) do not stock parts. Too expensive to inventory. Boy, I understand that - last month, when I had the Mercedes Benz, the sophisticated air/gas/ fluid front suspension needed to be replaced. No way around it. Parts not in stock anywhere in Asia. Parts had to come from Germany. $4,600.00. Add another $800.00 for shipping by air (by cargo ship, $150.00 - but would take two-months +). Earlier in the year, I had another problem that generated a similar size bill. I clearly didn't want to have anything to do with these kinds of expenses again.

It was time for me to be more modest and trade-away some back-seat* comfort for something with more reasonable parts and maintenance requirements.

Hands down, the Toyota Camry is the universal car of choice in Cambodia. Parts galore and plenty of excellent independent garages. I decided the Camry was to be my replacement car.

Next, being all vehicles imported to Cambodia one way or another have serious flaws and corrupted odometer readings, I determined only vehicles from the United States were to be considered.

There is a company in the U.S. some may know called CarFax . CarFax, for a reasonable fee, provides true odometer readings for dealer service history, police involved crash/flood/insurance claim history, as well as quality of title and chain of title while in the United States. Very important.

It is common cars come to Cambodia with 175,000-miles, been flooded/repaired and then in a big wreck, sold as 'savage-only' value only to be reborn two-months later in Cambodia looking like a gem with 65,000-miles on the odometer. I must hand it to the Cambodians, they are supreme masters when it comes to putting lipstick on a pig.

To be continued.

*I do not drive in this city. I have a driver. Phnom Penh, Cambodia has the calmest calamity of wacky, anything-go's, road traffic on the planet. Bar none. If I were to sit up front it would greatly hinder my drivers field of view. Particularly being I am constantly reading newspapers that would further hinder my drivers view in a city where red lights, stop signs and double yellow lines are meaningless.

Buying and Selling Cars in Cambodia: Part Two

It took two days to sell the Mercedes as a private-party. I attribute the speed of sale to placing quarter-page display ads in the two English language newspapers in this city. Within the ad, I provided a blog folks could go drool over glam shots of the car. Having one of my best friends, Chean Long, the finest commercial photographer

in the Kingdom of Cambodia, didn't hurt. cheanlong.blogspot.com.

In the ad for the Mercedes, I gave two contact phone numbers, one for folks that wanted to speak English (you get me on the phone) and another number if you want to speak Khmer (you get my driver Sok Phea on the phone).

Over three days, we had well over 309-hits on the car blog, 45-phone enquiries, 10-follow up phone enquiries and 11-personal showings of the car. Most inquiries were from Khmer. 100% of personal showings were Khmer or Khmer/Chinese or other. The car sold to 'other', an accomplished local Singaporean businessman that I have come to respect.

While Sok Phea made himself busy with appointment after appointment, I made myself busy being a more informed replacement car buyer.

Cambodia does not make cars in the traditional sense. Every car in Cambodia is imported. For new and used cars entering the country that, 'look to be' in good condition and enter with a 'clear' title are taxed at 100% of value. Brutal.

But, if you import a damaged vehicle, the tax is lower. If 'Title' of the vehicle specifies the car is 'totaled' or of, 'salvage value', the tax is much lower still. That's where economics, practicality and labor converge making badly crashed, flooded or burned cars the perfect car to import to Cambodia.

When bad things happen to good cars in the Western world, there is a point where it is impractical to repair. One-hundred man-hours to repair at $35.00/hour often does not make economic sense to insurance companies.

Cambodia is a different animal. Take that same totaled car from the United States and place it in the hands of seven skilled guy's in Cambodia at $35.00/month and the math starts to really make sense.

In one month, Cambodians can take a five year-old disaster car and make it look nearly impeccable while big problems may surface just around the corner.

...to be continued.

Adventures Buying & Selling Cars in Cambodia.

Nearly two-years ago, when I decided to do some part-time investment work in Cambodia, I needed three things: A beautiful, safe place to live in a good location. A full-time driver. And a good car. Well, I got two out of three right. I love my penthouse apartment. My driver, Sok Phea is great. He has been with me from the start and we enjoy working together.

When it came to buying a used car here I chose a nice Mercedes sedan with great lines and back seat comfort and space. Bad decision on my part. I didn't do my homework and I should have known better. I believed the odometer reading of 75,000. When I started to have expensive problems, a car of this mileage should not have, I went to the rather sad and empty sole Mercedes Authorized Dealer in the Country. They pulled-up the World history of my car. As it turns out, this vehicle was last serviced in France with an odometer reading of 265,000 just before being exported to Cambodia.

As it turns out, only problem cars, mostly from California, arrive to the shores of Cambodia. They usually have one of three elements: Ultra-high mileage, high-impact collision or flood damage. Of the three elements my bad choice was unknown ultra-high mileage.

The blessing of this Mercedes is that for nearly two-years, it took myself and friends on long, multi-day adventures to the far reaches of this small, primitive country successfully.

Once I found the true history of this car, I knew it was time to sell.

And that is exactly what I did.

Car Wash American Style

This is for Cambodian friends that have never seen an automated car wash before.

Random Moments In Phnom Penh