Bikes Galore

So, last Friday I bought a bicycle. The old-fashioned, single speed, pedal variety. It's the first bike I've owned since the green Huffy I won from Channel 2 in a contest in second grade. As you can probably tell from that long gap in bike ownership, I'm not much of a bike rider. But, because exercise options here are somewhat limited, and because driving a motorcycle around has gotten me back in the habit of riding around on two wheels, I decided to take the plunge.

Shopping in Phnom Penh involves knowing (or guessing) where in the city you can buy things. There are the classic local markets, which have fruits, veggies, meats, rice, and some common basic stuff--think the Cambodian version of a grocery store. Then you have the slightly bigger markets, which have the basic commodoties and a whole lot more--think Super Wal-Mart. This is where you buy clothes, dishes, bag and backpacks, shoes, dvd's, jewelry, sheets and towels, lightbulbs, moto parts, and so on. There's maybe six or eight of these markets in the city, and they each have the reputation of "specializing" in certain types of goods: gifts and touristy stuff and Western clothes, fabric and more Asian-style outfits, jewelry and gemstones. In general, whatever you need, you can head to a big market and find it.

But there are also plenty of items that are most often sold in shops rather than at the market. Take furniture, for instance, or larger electronics (fans and appliances), or phones and airtime cards. Groups of these shops tend to be located in a cluster in one particular area of the city--there is one street that is lined with motorcycle shops, another with cane and bamboo furniture. So--to buy a bike, we went to the bike section of the city. The older Khmer sister that I live with came along to show me where to go, help me buy the bike, and then to drive my motorcycle back home after the process. Through some manner of reasoning that makes perfect sense to her, we drove past various bicycle shops until she found one to her liking.

Here I had a choice of three styles of bikes, costing $37, 35, or 45, depending on which row I chose my bike from. Bike pedals are not attached until after you purchase the bike, so choosing one (especially for my friend and I who are uninformed about what makes a quality bike) was a matter of seeing what looked nice and seemed sturdy (i.e. thump on bike parts and see what happens). We got to sample the kickstands and sit on the seats, and to take care not to browse among the identical bikes two inches away in the next shop. During this process we also chatted with the auntie who owned the shop, and got barked at by her chihuahua dog, who sat in a box on one of the rows of bikes (chihuahuas in Asia?).

And then finally, bike selected, we made our purchase. Final price: $43, including the previously lacking pedals, a basket on the handlebars, a bell, a chain to the bike up with, and a light that you lean against the front tire so that it is powered by the friction of the turning wheel (if you stop you are in the dark, I guess). I don't know if that's a good price or not, but at least it was less than the $50 another foreigner spent at the shop next door. At this point, I remembered the length of time since I had last ridden a bike, and the interesting Phnom Penh traffic, and decided to take the bike home in a tuk-tuk (a cart pulled by a moto) so that I could take my first ride on quieter streets. This also meant that my first ride was in front of the Cambodian grandma at our house, to her great amusement. And once all of that had been accomplished, my next order of business was to remove all the pre-applied stickers off of the bike frame--I tend not to decorate my modes of transportation with neon flowers and blue eagles. Stickers removed, my new bike looks a little less reminiscent of my second grade Huffy, although I did learn that the decals had done a good job of hiding all the scratches and rust spots in the paint.

Finding a store that carried bike helmets was another story altogether, but--that has been accomplished as well, and I am now ready to hit the road!

Rainy Season

The rainy season has officially been here, in full force, for the last two weeks or so. Typically it starts in May, so mid-April was a little early--although the hot season came early this year, too, so the rainy season was more than welcome to start when ever it felt like it. We've had some big stormy downpours, and a few lighter rains as well. The downpours do a good job of flooding anything that happens to be lower lying that what surrounds it. Sometimes this means flooded streets or sidewalks, sometimes property. On the lot where I live, there are three houses. Two of these (mine included) are smaller and newer, and are built up a foot or so higher than the rest of the lot. The third house is actually sunk a few inches lower than the rest of the lot. And in general, all the land surrounding out lot is higher than we are--our lot is sort of at the middle of a "bowl." So--yes, guess where all that flooding rainwater goes? Right onto our property! (And plenty of other properties as well, we are by no means the only ones.)

Therefore--the two lowest areas of our lot, the ground floor of the large house and the "yard" in the back of the lot, have turned into two small lakes for the duration of the wet season. Other areas of the lot flood or dry out depending on how much rain we have. This morning they are basically dried out, although over the weekend we had the most standing water we've had so far. There was enought water that Tol, the younger sister of the Khmer family I live with, caught an 8-inch fish swimming around the front yard. Said fish has now been passing it's time in a water-filled garbage can until Tol decides to cook it up for dinner. It is a little disconcerting wading into the flooding and wondering what else is lurking in the muddy water besides just fish. The lake in the back yard is now home to scores of black water snails. Where they came from, I don't know, but there are plenty of them. The biggest ones have shells about an inch and a half long. The water also means that some of our residents ants have abandoned their wetter homes and now spend their days tramping in lines across my front porch. And of course, there are always the choruses of frogs that croak away day and night--a whole range of sounds from baby to grandpa frogs. I kind of like it.

Thankfully, my little house has been up high enough to stay high and dry. However, I do get to wade through whatever water is in the front yard to get from my house to the big house or to the road and back. Also, we park out motor bikes on the ground floor of the big house, where they can be locked in so they are not stolen during the night. So--between going to and from my house, and driving my bike in and out of the lake that is the ground floor, I have been hanging out in lots of water. I try not to think too much about what all has washed into the water--just rinse my feet off when I get a chance. And so far so good--no wierd skin funguses or anything :)

But--flooding and wading aside, the rains do cool the weather off, which is MUCH appreciated. Plus a good storm is enjoyable when you are dry and inside, and even if you are out and about in it--life goes on. Packable plasic ponchos were made for just such an occasion.