I love motorcycles

I am happy to annouce I have found a new passion in life ... motorcycles. Lucky for me, Asia is full of them! They transport everyone, from market sellers and really old people, to babies, school children, and families. They even take paying tourists, complete with luggage! (I will be inserting a photo here as an example in a few days... )

I have taken three rides so far - my first was a fun off-road adventure with my trusty guide Yee, a skinny 21 year old Cambodian boy with a huge smile that I didn't see much of due to his camo-colored face mask. On my third day of visiting the ruins in Angkor, I decided to go to a further out ruin Bantay Srei, that I had read was beautiful and well-preserved. Being on my own this time, I decided to go via motorbike. About 2 blocks from my hotel a shy guy with this grand smile offered to be my tour guide with this motorcycle. (please note that this is VERY common practice in SE Asia, in any given block of Cambodia there are 5-20 motorcycle dudes shouting at you "moto miss, moto, you want moto?" It is common practice and very professional ... perhaps safer than a Mexico City taxi ... which I took for 1 year!) So Yee and I negotiated a rate of $7 for an all day trip to see this ruin about an hour away, then too another one another ways further, and back. I hopped on the back, and away we go!!! (insert other foto here :)

I think this day, finally on my own, sitting on a bike with the wind in my hair (helmet, what's that?) smiling at the people along the road smiling back, passing farms and huts and green fields and locals on bicycles, I felt the warm exuberance of pure joy, complete contentment and confidence that THIS is it. This moment is worth all the long days of working, planning and saving that had to happen for me to be here on this trip. If I die now, I will be smiling ... big, really big.

But thankfully, I didn't die, and the day went on with more adventures. The first temple was completely breathtaking. Worth the long journey and effort to get there. The intricate stone carvings told far off tales of Hindu gods and Angkorian dancers, of another lifetime over a thousand years ago. It was beautiful. Then we pushed on, leaving the pavement for the dustiest dirt road I have ever traveled, where I finally understood the downside of motorcycles. I was completely covered in dirt from head to toe, ears, eyes, hair. dirty. really dirty. The best part was when big trucks would speed by spitting up complete dust storms, and I would duck behind my trusty driver Yee, squeezing my eyes closed and trying not to breathe ... and he says to me "dirt get in my eye, make it no see" ... ah, great. really fun. add one more element of excitement to the motorcycle and I am addicted.

My second motorcycle ride was after a long fun boat ride from Siam Reap to Phnom Phen, Cambodia, 6 hours on a big motorized "speed boat" jam packed with 40 tourists and their back packs. The first day I toured on foot, seeing the National Museum and some statues and parks. Then the next day I ventured out with a skirt and learned about the down-side to motorcycles. they don't work particularly well with skirts. especially knee-length straight skirts which really cannot be tucked around the legs. After protesting to the insistent moto-chofers, I learned the OTHER way to ride on the back of a bike: side-saddle. This added yet another more exciting element to my whole motorcycle experience. Imagine me, sitting sideways, trying my hardest to keep my legs together, balancing one foot on the foot-bar with the other on-top, trying to tuck my long legs as close to the bike as possible so as not to get hit by the hundreds of other motos zooming by ... super fun.

Which brings me to moto experience number 3 - in Vietnam. I arrived in Vietnam after another boat ride (which I have also grown fond of - will have to write another blog about my love of boats!), spent the night in a border town Chau Doc, dining out with my 5 new best friends from Chile and Germany, and the next day took a 6 hour bus ride with a lot of Vietnamese people, and NO gringos!, to Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh). After arriving at the city outskirts, the bus dumped me and my new Vietnamese language tutors off in a dusty parking lot and I am suddenly bombarded by 10 eager moto-chofers asking me to hire them for a ride to my hotel. So, I pick the guy with the most messed-up blackened and missing teeth, of course. (If he is a good eater, he must be trust-worthy.) And after getting him down in cost, we start off. Only this ride is made more exciting by another new factor ... luggage. Okay, so NOW picture a much fatter and older Yee, or Hong, perhaps, holding my large bag in his lap, me behind with my small and medium-sized over-the-sholder bags, both in helmets this time (Vietnam requires them - happy, mom?), cruising through Saigon Friday afternoon traffic, over sidewalks and through red lights, asking for directions with my guidebook in hand, pulling up to this fancy hotel looking like I had litteraly just come from the front lines of the war zone Vietnam. hillarious.

In short, I love motorcycles and I hope to continue my writing my own Motorcycle Diaries over the next few months. (But not for a couple weeks as I am now traveling in luxury with the 60+ crowd with my parents and friends in a tour through Indochine.)