My second order of business upon arriving in Phnom Penh — after travelling back to the beginning of time to purchase this cellphone — was buying a bike.
The standard mode of transportation here is by moto taxi. You sit helmetless on the back of a moped — they like to pretend it’s a motorcycle — while the driver careens into uncoming traffic, all the while turning his head to converse in broken English.
Now, I’m no great fan of safety, but I am pretty big on independence. I just could not handle the idea of depending on — and paying for — other people to get everywhere. Walking is not an option. Cambodians do not understand the concept of exercise, and they will make fun of you for participating in it.
And so, my new friend Arielle and I hitched a ride to the bike market with Fong, a moto driver who acts as fixer for everybody in the house.
Fong inspects a bike for Arielle
Although the street was lined with stall after stall of bicycles, Fong claimed that this particular bicycle stall was superior to the surrounding ones because its bikes were “brand new”. Right. Brand new(ly stolen from the streets of Beijing and spray-painted silver).
$35 later, we were wheel-borne. From a purely topographical standpoint, biking here is a breeze. There is exactly one hill in all of Phnom Penh, and someone built a temple on top of it, precluding any cycling.
Psychologically speaking, though, biking in PP is something akin to swimming up a waterfall. A urine-smelling, dusty, car horn-serenaded waterfall.
Anyone who has visited the city can tell you that there are no traffic laws here. For at least two blocks of my daily commute, I ride directly into oncoming traffic, rather than risk crossing the road.
There is no waiting for a break in traffic to cross the street here. I just shut my eyes, wade out into the stream of honking motos and Toyota Camrys, and pray that everyone will take the path around me rather than through me.
typical PP intersection
I’m told that I’ll give up on biking when it gets hot enough to melt my spokes in a couple of months. We’ll see. For now, I’m totally addicted to the near-death thrill of it.
