A Motorbike Affair
Recently I was in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia and I flew to Kuala Lumpur then directly to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The flights were the usual Air Asia, basically low cost airfare similar to Southwest Airlines only with Asian stewardesses. The arrival into Phnom Penh airport was much like other Southeast Asian airports, but don’t start thinking that meant it was mundane.
After getting off the plane and surrendering $20 for the visa, I was in! Ahh, Cambodia! Home to the once glorious Khmer empire. It’s recent history wrought with fear and tragedy, but now, now Cambodia is filled with…touts and taxi drivers…? As usual in any place tourists are highly concentrated, touts and taxi drivers are on you like white-on-rice. They will follow you everywhere and say anything just to hear that magical word…”Alright.” There was one taxi driver in particular who followed me over to where I set my bags down to take a look exactly where I would be heading.
I feel like I’ve definitely become a smarter traveler after traveling for a while. Granted I’ve had this feeling before, but after learning some lessons the hard way, I’ve really (knock-on-wood!) learned to take my emotions and the words of the locals perched anywhere near where tourists congregate with a grain of salt.
As I exited the airport there were loads of touts trying to get me into their tuk-tuks and taxis. I read in my trusty (yeah right!) Lonely Planet, which told of the motorbike drivers that await just outside the airport to drive you into town. I was debating taking my life into my hands by riding on the back of a motorbike into Phnom Penh prior to listening to the rants of the tout following me. However, after he began to obviously lie to me repeatedly, I knew that the motorbike would be my only choice if not for spite alone. I heard every reason why I shouldn’t take the motorbike; they are miles away – none out there, they no longer charge $2 – it’s now $5, they don’t know where they are taking you, they don’t speak English, blah, blah. Earlier in the trip I would probably have been in the back of a tuk-tuk riding into town at this point. However, there wasn’t a chance I could give this man my money, so I headed to an ATM to buy some time.
He saw me. It was love at first sight, I could see it in his eyes. Maybe it was the my hair, maybe my clothes, heck I dunno, maybe it was the fact that I was a tourist who had just exited the airport and was standing at an ATM withdrawing $100 USD. No matter what it was, he came running. He was a motorbike driver. Behaving like an enemy combatant on foreign soil he maneuvered swiftly and cautiously, staying on the balls of his feet. Honestly, watching him and the scene unfold was absolutely hilarious. He came in quickly and told me $2 to town, I said yes and he ran quickly back to his fortified position just beyond view of the arriving passengers. As he ran the touts scolded him for this daring maneuver.
I just want to pause the story for a second here. I just withdrew US dollars from a foreign ATM machine. That’s never happened to me before. I didn’t even know it was possible, but here it was the only option. This little trick would have come in quite handy in certain countries…
Anyways, I hopped on the motorbike and as we rode into town the motobike driver began telling me of our beautiful future together. Tomorrow or even later that day he would pick me up and we would ride around town together. He knows all the best places to stay, the best places to eat and he even told me that he was going to call a girl friend of his that I would seduce with the the words, ‘hello’ and ‘darling’. Before I knew it day after day was planned for me and he was going to be driving me to all the places he had planned for us.
However, the conversation began to die a bit as my mind raced. I couldn’t make up my mind and I was playing hard to get. “Maybe…” and “We’ll see…” I repeated, as I couldn’t help but think about this future that had been planned for me. It wasn’t long, I thought, before we were riding down a California highway trailing cans off the back of his decorated motorbike streaming a rainbow colored ‘Just Married’ sign. I wasn’t ready for the commitment. I felt smothered.
Driving in Phnom Penh
Some of you may have heard the expression, ‘Lanes were more of a suggestion,’ however, many of you likely haven’t because the more I think about the more I think I just made it up and the ‘…more of a suggestion’ part really applies to anything. Regardless, here in Phnom Penh, sides of the road are more of a suggestion. I’m not sure if they are confused because their neighboring countries drive on the left and they drive (or are supposed to) on the right, but honestly you can pretty much drive on whatever side of the road you want. If driving were like the free market, this is what it would look like.
Now let me take you through a typical left turn: you are engulfed in a sea of cars. Riding on the back of a motorbike you are part of the less fortunate crowd as expectations are high to beat everyone through the maze of fast moving steel. You approach a red light, but wait, you aren’t stopping, in fact, you are accelerating. To both your left and your right heaps of cars are creating a narrow window to squeeze through. Horns blazing you manage to make it through with only your blood pressure raised by 10 points. But wait, what on earth are you doing? You are literally driving into oncoming traffic as drift towards the road you’d like to turn on. I tend to do this when taking left turns at home, but I find that I have the tendency not to with swarms of oncoming traffic. No matter here, as we enter the other lane cars race toward us, head on. I close my eyes and hope for the best.
We emerge unscathed by the onslaught of cars. Miraculous I thought. As we come to a stop at the guesthouse I was asked what my plans were tomorrow and if he could be my driver. “We’ll see”, I reply. Maybe I was leading him on…I’m not really sure how it works in Cambodia. I guess I’ll just have to wait for tomorrow.
