Two Wheelin' Nation

Phnom Penh, Cambodia
16 December 2002

There seem to be more scooters than people in places like Vietnam and Cambodia, here is a Saigon street.


"WHHOAAAAA! Shit. Slow down, tiger." I slapped my driver on the back again as he swerved to avoid another motorbike going against traffic. Horns blare behind me as cars whip past our swarm of moped straddling schoolkids in blue pants and white shirts.

"YIKES!" My shoulder brushes the woman riding next to me, two children clinging to the back of her moto. Dust blows all around us as everyone covers their mouths and closes their eyes..."JESUS!" I pull my shoulders in tight. Each passing motorbike sports snagging cables, protruding pedals, boxy wiry baskets, and devouring drive chains. I curl my fingers and toes into tight little balls, lest some passing bike tear off this little piggie.

Phnom Phen, population one million, claims about four miles of paved roads, maybe nine traffic lights, and seemingly half a million two-wheeled vehicles, all in varying states of disrepair. Two-wheelers outnumber cars twenty-to-one.

It's simple economics, most Cambodians cannot afford cars, so anything with wheels or even hooves finds its way onto the roads: bikes, moped, motorcycles, tuk tuks, pedicabs, even horse and water buffalo drawn carts. Cargo of all sorts also gets strapped on, half a cord of firewood, three dozen melons, even a live 400-lb pig once!

Motos scoot along with all sorts of people and cargo, regardless of safety or capacity. A 250cc mopeds (the kind you had in college) carries up to three adults, with added foot pegs. I watch families of five straddling one moped, like some Barnum and Bailey circus act. A woman the other day struggled to steer with three kids on her moto, two in back, one in front of her, and a infant slung hammock-like in a Khmer krava (scarf) between her handlebars!!

Lots of cottage industries spring up in support of the motos. Small filling stations, a woman with a dozen assorted glass bottles (mostly Johnnie Walker) filled with vermilion gas and orange petrol sit every 200 yards. Every 500 yards someone sleeps next to a portable electric tire pump, charging the equivalent of 2 cents to patch and re-inflate a flat. Every other storefront repairs bikes, mopeds, or both.

With the traffic, stepping off the curb constitutes a combination game of chicken and Russian Roulette. Lanes are a suggestion, traffic signals are superfluous, and police are ignored. Like getting swiped by a wayward New York takeout delivery guy, you better look every which way but loose before crossing the street.

I initially shirk from crossing, waiting for impossible gaps in the traffic to appear. I end up getting sunburned. Finally, like an infantryman dashing across open ground, I crouch and sprint, camera flapping, backpack bouncing, to the other side. Whew!

Walking all day, I relent and flag down a passing moto for a ride back to my hostel, a ride costs about 30 cents. I endure good rides and bad rides, like the one mentioned earlier, realizing 9 of 10 drivers don't know where I want to go. I quickly learn to point out the turns required to get to my hostel.

After a few days, I feel brave enough to rent a moped in Siam Reap, the town adjoining the famous Angkor Wat temple complex. Granted, traffic here is analogous to the Buy.com tour when compared to Phnom Penh. But its just mellow enough for me to get around the temples safely.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be an underlying order to the macadam madness, a real-life exhibition of chaos theory. I witness no accidents, though I waited with camera ready when I spied a guy carrying two 8-foot long 4x4 beams across his bike, nearly swatting a score of other road users. Everyone seems to know how traffic works and these two-wheeled swarms flow smoothly around slow cars and other obstructions like water down a rocky stream.

The laid-back Cambodians, with ready smiles, seem not to mind the chaotic traffic, to them, its life. I think the predominantly Buddhist nation also thinks that wiping out some family in a moto accident will saddle you with bad karma for many lifetimes.

A week into my trip, I too am used to the traffic and the dust. I smirk at a bunch of fresh-off-the-boat tourists stand tentatively at the side of the road, waiting for a break in the traffic; or watch a backpacker cling tightly to the moto seat. Whereas I, Michael Seto, intrepid Cambodian road vet, wave my arms around like Kate Winslet in 'Titantic' and flash a silly grin at swarming around me.

I slap my driver's back, "FASTER!"