Cycling

We cycle to the clinic each day, Megan and I with our backpacks and sunglasses. We have rickety old gearless bikes, but for $1/ day, who can complain? And we have baskets at the front... Anyway, the way there is pretty sweet, it's 7.15 am so the heat is yet to reach it's full potential. This, however, does not mean we aren't sweating profusely when we arrive at a quarter to 8 to begin work. Riding up and over the bridge without gears is heavy duty and the bright morning sun is a killer.

It's Tuesday afternoon and we’re riding our bikes home from the clinic. It’s peak hour so there are even more cars, mopeds, bicycles, cyclos and people on the road. It has been 35 degrees + all day and half an hour before we left it thunderstormed. So we are riding our rickety gearless bikes without a helmet in bright yellow ponchos and going about 5 km/hour. Not for the first time, I think to myself, “Only in Cambodia”. We ride in the hope that everyone else avoids us… and they do somehow. There are near misses of course, and sometimes not near misses, but usually it somehow just works. The roundabout is chaos. To get to our street, we have to cross to the centre of the roundabout, then to the edge to exit it and then a few lefts and a few rights. During this time the only thoughts through my mind are, “I’m still alive, I’m still alive, I’m still alive!” The poncho by now is sticking to my skin as rain does not mean a drop in the temperature and by no means does it mean a reduction in the humidity! As my legs turn circles, I find my thighs sticking to my calves! When we get back to the hotel we are not wet from rain, as that ceased a while back, we are drenched in sweat. And now we have to climb three flights of stairs...