As Easy As...Hard

3/28

Though I would've gone eventually, the specific reason I'm in Siem Reap right now is because my Aunt Chris is vacationing here for a week with a friend of hers so I wanted to meet them.  I asked the people at the front desk how much it would cost to get a tuk tuk to their hotel, and once they agreed where it was generally, they said $3.  I thought this was excessive since it was still a short trip and a couple nearby mentioned that I could probably rent a bicycle for $1 for the day and go out there.  This sounded like a good idea to me, despite the fact that I hadn't ridden a bicycle since I was about 16, and even then just once or twice when my mom decided to torture us with a "family activity," which almost always meant time spent hiking or bicycling or climbing lighthouses in Nature, who I just don't get along with.  I hadn't regularly bicycled or just gone out for a joyride since I was, oh, maybe 10. 

Regardless, I didn't even consider the idea that I'd have trouble.  It didn't even occur to me as a thought to brush off.  If it had, I know I wouldn't have been bothered anyway because there are so many cliches about riding bicycles: "It's just like riding a bike," "You never forget how to ride a bicycle," "Easy as riding a bike," "If you fall down, you just get back on the bike," etc.

So I walked down the road a bit, saw a sign, "Bike $1" written in black sharpie on a square of brown cardboard and rented a bicycle with a $10 deposit.  I thought the seat looked high, but what did I know? so I got on, managed to catch the pedals and force them into motion and wobbled away.  I realized that while I could technically ride a bicycle, I couldn't ride it well.  My balance was off and instead of traveling in a straight line, my front tire seemed to keep moving sideways so I was going in the right direction, but taking a decidedly unscenic route since I couldn't keep the bike steady.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I made this drawing for you:

You now know how well I was doing, but I was progressing.  At least until I saw an ATM.  I needed to get money so I pointed the tough, sticky handlebars in that direction.  I didn't notice the little trough in between the road and the sidewalk until just before I got there.  I had time to stop, and started to brake slightly, but then decided to go for it.  Obviously this was a stupid thing to do and had I simply committed to going over it and not braking, or had I fully stopped and walked it over, I'm sure I would have been fine.  This inbetweenness, though, did not work, and I realized that about two seconds before it happened.  I fell down, but since I was expecting it, I like to think I fell quite gracefully, though it may not have appeared that way to the untrained eye.  Or eyes, of everyone nearby; the British couple who stopped to see if I was okay, the tuk tuk driver, the motorcyclist and the bank guard.  I was fine, dirty since I toppled over onto the filthy street, but not even scratched.

Moral of the story: You can forget how to ride a bike, it's not that easy, but fortunately, you can get right back on (and speed away from those looking at you pitifully).

I bicycled around the Independence Gardens, by the Royal Residence, went into a temple, then continued through the town in general and the Old Market area, stopping at the Central Market to get some weird egg/fish (paste?)/vegetable pancake thing and a dragonfruit, which I'm starting to love.  Most of the food and things in the market were no stranger than anything else I'd seen, except for the crickets and cicadas which looked like they'd been baked, and could be bought by the kilo to snack on.  I passed. 

In the afternoon I relaxed at the hostel for a while before heading out to meet Chris for dinner at her hotel, where I'd left a note for her earlier.  On my way I accidentally passed through a Buddhist monk village place because I had to escape a creepy guy on a motorcycle who was following me, but it was okay, because even just passing though, the compound was quite interesting, and I successfully lost the jerk.

I had a nice dinner with Chris and her friend, Amarita, who lived in Qatar (which is apparently pronounced "Cutter" interestingly enough) and went back to the hostel, had a 50 cent Angkor draft beer at the rooftop bar and set my alarm before going to bed in preparation for an early, very early, day tomorrow.