The end of a dream

For Laura and I, last week saw the end of a dream - the Honda Dream.

For the past five months we have grown to love the newest member of our family, a 125cc light-blue Honda Dream - made in Japan and exported to Cambodia for our riding pleasure.

Although at no point did we transport a basket full of pigs on the back of our motorbike (see picture - this is NOT my Dream by the way), we did have some interesting experiences on the back of the bike lent to us by our work while we looked for our own.

When my neighbour informed me that "people kill for a bike like that in Cambodia", I knew that it was going to be an eventful few months on the Dream. Although (thankfully) I was not held up at gun point or forced in any other way to turn over my bike, there were a few incidents that have left indelibable scars on my memory and, in some cases, on those the bike came into contact with:

Incident #1: While cruising around Phnom Penh, I was rudely pulled over by the traffic police who took one look at my bike, one look at me and thought to themselves "easy money". The conversation went something like this: Officer - "You break law, you pay ten dollar." Dave - "I didn't know I was breaking the law and I'm sure ten dollars is too much." Officer - "You break law, you pay ten dollar." And on we went until I eventually forked out seven dollars for the priviledge of driving away. I later found out that, although I had violated one of the few traffic laws in the country, the actual charge for this was half a dollar. Not the most successfull bargain I've ever struck...

Incident #2: During the period of 'trying out new things with the bike', I rather ambitiously tried to mount a large curb outside a restaurant we were about to enter. The purpose of my revving and pushing the bike against the curb was to get the tryres over the bump and onto the pavement, where parking was permitted. What actually happened was that I revved quite a lot, pushed quite a lot and ended up careering over the curb and, unable to control the bike, ended up on top of someone's elses bike, parked on the pavement. By the time the owner of the bike had run out of the restaurant to find out what had happened to his precious bike, which he had foolishly assumed would be safe up on the curb, I had already prepared my excuses. After trying to explain these to him in English and him explaining his total disbelief that my bike had ended up on top of his (I had peeled my bike of his by this time) in Khmer, I decided to say "sorry" and give him 5 dollars before walking into a restaurant of bemused customers and an unimpressed wife. Not the proudest moment of my short life...

Incident #3: Apart from the traffic police and oversized curbs, the other enemy of motos in Cambodia is the weather. When it rains, it pours and when it pours it very often floods, not the best conditions for a small motorbike. During one of my last outings on the bike (which Laura had increasingly opted out of sitting on the back of) I got stuck driving through flood waters up to my waist. The bike, not suprisingly, did not last long in these conditions and, after a few splutters, gave out - leaving me to push it through filthy flood water to safety. My choice of location for breaking down was Boeng Keng Kang Market, which had decided to empty its rotten vegetables and other rubbish into the floating water. The sight of a westerner pushing his bike around the market, with rubbish and vegetables floating all around him, was apparently quite amusing to the locals who stood inside the doorways of their houses watching and laughing. I tried to hold my head up high as the carrots floated underneath my arms. Not the most pleasant of experiences...

These (and several other incidents, which I will keep to myself) have served to teach me many lessons about driving around Phnom Penh. I hope to put these into practice with our new bike - a Honda Daelim (100cc, for those who are interested). But in Cambodia, you never know what's just around the corner...