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Other entries in Sihanoukville

Hello Moto! or I want to ride my bye-cee-cull!

SnoopDoggyDogville is a collection of five beaches (Victory, Sokha, Independence, Serendipity and Occheuteal) loosely held together by a sprawling town. It is the only beach resort in Cambodia and so plays host to a large weekend gathering of Khmer people as well as tourists.

I opted to stay at the GST hostel near Serendipity as that was the best beach, apparently, and by staying off the beach (5 mins walk) I only paid $5 instead of $10-15.

The only way to really get around is by moto and I felt this presented me with the perfect opportunity to conquer, or just maybe quell, one of my fears. Remember on Koh Samui how the fear of the moped had made my pants quite poo-ey?

All from just sitting on the back of a moped at 30 mph driving on very good roads.

This irrational fear could not be allowed to continue and my hostel presented me with a possible solution to my phobia. They hired out mopeds for $4 per day! This was my chance to address the issue... after all a wise person once said that "there is nothing to fear but fear itself".

I knew that SnoopDoggyDogville was pretty quiet and easy to navigate... it seemed like fate or destiny was in my hands. This feeling was even more emphatic after I had signed the paperwork absolving the hostel from any blame should I be involved in any kind of accident involving motos, cows, fruit, Germans or the popping packaging you get with electronic goods.

I was ready to go... almost. It was at that point that it dawned on me that there was one crucial thing I needed to know.

ME: Er... can I ask one thing?

HOSTEL MANAGER: Sure. What is it? You want to know about petrol?

ME: Er...(nervous laugh) How do you drive this?

Yes, that's right. I had no idea how to drive a moped and it seemed like a great time to learn (before your 1st ever drive of one in a foreign country where most people drive like maniacs or imbeciles or both).

Once the elementary stuff had been dealt with I decided to work out the finer details (like changing gears and stopping safely by myself and I was away and free like a soaring eagle... with one wing. I took it easy for the first hour or so and made sure I was overcautious in my driving. Then I took a stop for lunch at the Bamboo Light Cafe where I had another nice, but not hot, curry.

Feeling revitalised, after eating, and more assured as my hands had stopped hurting after the overzealous concentration of my initial driving foray... I had some fun.

I drove around for 5 hours to I don't know where... and I didn't care. The fun was in the driving. It was exhilirating, no matter that I was only driving a 250cc moped I still had a huge grin on my face most of the time. Embarrassingly, I often burst into song for no reason at all as I chugged along the quiet country roads which connected the beaches of SnoopDoggyDogville.

I have to admit that there many cows, and a few pigs, that were impressed by my renditions of "Let Me Entertain You" and "Let It Be". But everyone was wowed by my warbling of "Hey Jude".

There were only two things that impinged on this blissful union between Man, machine and music. First was when I coasted down a sloping gravel track in neutral to save on petrol (Hey! I was paying for it!). As I got to the end of the track I pushed down on the pedal for 1st gear... the rear wheel will span into life and the whole bike skidded until perpendicular with the track and then I enojyed a perpendicular skid... I swear this went on for an eternity but my watch told me it was 10 seconds.

I was scared but I controlled the skid and near the end, as the bike started to straighten out, I whooped with delight as if I was the embodiment of Evel Knievel, Easy Rider, Street Hawk and the Mexican guy from CHiPs. Once I stopped the bike, to catch my breath I also had a quick look around to make sure none of the cows or pigs nearby were laughing/mooing/oinking at my mishap.

Fortunately they weren't.

The second was the chain and lock. I was asked to lock the moto every time I went away from it and I was more than happy to do that as I did not want to have to deal with the repercussions of its theft.

Unfortunately, my brain is not very big and cannot retain much information for very long. So each time I secured the bike and walked off, I instantly forgot about the chain and lock. So I have to say there were at least five instances when I could not understand why my bike would not move more than 2 inches. Once I fixed the problem, I of course made sure no cows or pigs were making fun of me. They weren't... just the Cambodians that happened to be there every time I did it.

I have to say though that it was an excellent experience and one I will try again if I find a quiet place to do so. I may have only really eased my fear of riding on motos and cemented to you all how dumb I can be... but I did have a fantastic day - which even now brings a smile to my face.

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