Nice views indeed. That's quite the work crew you've got there.
About your Tuk Tuk. I once had a motorbike with a sidecar when I lived in Thailand and I absolutely loved that machine. It took some getting used to in order to learn how to drive it but once I sorted that out it was such a wonderful machine to have. At the time I also owned an SUV but I could actually carry more stuff on the sidecar. It was always a lot of fun to drive my friends around as well because everyone wanted to ride in this unique vehicle.
One day we were driving to the beach and my friends were mixing drinks in the sidecar while I was driving. This is not a fast vehicle and while I do not condone drink driving one of my friends handed me a sip of a gin/tonic while I was driving. It was just a sip and I didn't get drunk that day on account of me being the driver. Anyway, while he was handing the drink over to me a police truck pulled up next to us and I was thinking "great...I'm about to be the first person ever to get done for a DUI in Thailand".... the police rolled the windows down and looked at us menacingly with their aviator sunglasses and then the cop smiled and said "Good Job!" and carried on down the road. Ah memories.
Please tell me Nadi rode in the sidecar and there is photographic evidence.
Even though I have a tuk-tuk and a motorbike, and back in the states I restored, repaired and tuned classic Vespas and Lambrettas, I have never owned a sidecar and it's still a life goal. I've been spying a very skilled aluminum sidecar guy in Thailand on Facebook, and one day when I strike it rich I hope to design a sidecar camper and have it built.
I have never once felt nervous around Khmer cops, but I've always felt uneasy around Thai police and military. They always have their shirts tucked in, wearing boots laced tight instead of flip-flops, and there was always a feeling that these guys take their jobs seriously and won't risk it all for $20 like many would here. From the stories I've heard too it sounds like hit and miss there with the cops, and in your case sounds like a best case scenario.
Sadly I never allowed Nadi to ride in the sidecar, she has the street smarts of a deer in the headlights and this problem unfortunately exists to this day where she seems to want to get hit by cars and will even pull on the leash to put us into traffic. A few times she fell off my motorbike that had a foot area because I don't think she understands what fast movement really entails. Therefore she was forever banned from riding in a position where it was even possible for her to exit. This is very strange to me because in every other aspect of life she is actually extremely smart.
Without these restrictions she would have been turned into a street pancake many years ago.
Poor Nadi, she's missing out. I had a Lhasa Apso when I was a kid and she was very smart in some very specific circumstances. She was never able to stop attacking the mailman even when my stepbrother shot her with a bb gun, not that I condone that, but it was the 80s.