Chicks on Motorbikes!

Our second morning in Battambang, we had a similarly relaxed morning, of breakfasting, emailing, doing little odds and ends, until we were all aligned around 9 or 9:30 in the morning, ready to rent motorbikes from our hotel. The funny thing about this is since the day before, all of our front-desk hotel and tuk-tuk guys had been trying to talk us out of the motorbike rental, (as well as the bicycle rentals the day before) and to instead take a tuk-tuk with them. This made some sense to us in terms of the bicycle rentals since they were so cheap (they'd try and talk us out of it by telling us we were going to get lost, even though there were only two simple turns on the entire ride that we took to the bamboo train) but with the motorbikes, we didn't understand- it was going to be $5 each ($15 total) which is at most what a tuk-tuk was going to cost.

Anyway, we had to tell them firmly about 5 times each day that we were doing the motorbike thing no matter what, because we wanted to, because we liked it, and because it was more fun. They would tell us that we'd also have to pay for gas, but we said we didn't care. Nonethless, every morning, "Tony" the tuk-tuk driver would come out from seemingly nowhere when I would descend the stairs from my 3rd floor room, and try and talk me into a tuk tuk ride, and just how many sights he would take me to for a 'very good price'. Our words were useless in stopping this constant attempt to sell, but we managed to just keep a sense of humour about it and just laugh and tell them if we needed a tuk-tuk we would definitely let them know.

So, we got three motorbikes, much to the dismay and resistance of the hotel staff, but once we were on the bikes, they seemed interested and impressed at the daring of this stubborn girl-posse. Our first destination was Banan Sompea- a temple at the top of a mountain, as well as many temples along the way up, and also another Khmer Rouge location, where there were 'Killing Caves', where Khmer Rouge Soldiers rounded up anyone who they considered the enemy (doctors, teachers, anyone educated) and just push them off the edge of a cave to let them fall to their demise. Quite terrible stuff. But important to visit, and to learn about this history.

We rode a solid 20-30km to get to this destination, and met an Australian couple on a motorbike when pulling in. We wound up teaming up, as well as with a Cambodian who offered to be our guide. He was a nice guy, and gave us good advice for how to drive up the steep hills ahead, as well as giving us much information on all of the temples and sights that we had to see. It was quite beautiful up there, with many golden buddhas. In the cave where poor victims had been pushed to their death, there was a large golden reclining buddha, and a glass case of skulls, that had been collected by an elderly man who sat in this cave, offering blessings in the form of incense and string bracelets. He sits in there all day I believe, receiving all of the people that come to visit. He had such a calm stillness, and a profound depth and kindness in his eyes. I was quite touched to receive a blessing from him, and can only imagine the loss that he probably experienced from the time of the Khmer Rouge takeover, to have collected all those skulls and to sit in there all day, creating love and blessings out of hate and murder.

We climbed to many other temples, where some monks were walking around. At one point we sat and listened to one monk telling a story, which was quite nice, while all sitting around on benches. At another point, I found an older woman laying on the floor of one of the temples, and when I came in she sat up. There is some sort of fortune telling that goes on in many temples in Cambodia that I have witnessed. A person or people approach the man or woman in the temple, and they have a stack of cards that are connected by a metal ring around a hole punched in the end of each card. The visitor takes the stack of cards, puts it on top of their head, and takes a toothpick like object and sticks it randomly into the stack. The fortune teller then reads the card to the recipient, and the fortune is told.

Each of the cards seems to contain a story from the Buddha, so, while it is an excerpt from an old writing, each story has significance. The story she told me (which got translated by my guide for me) meant that if I 'go to work', then there will be someone to help me. This is just perfect, as I am about to start a job where I will be teaching 5th grade, and will have a mentor teacher there the whole time. Regardless of the message, I was excited to have finally participated in this ritual that I had been observing for some time now.

At the bottom of the hill, we said goodbye to the Australians, as well as our guide, and did a little shopping on this road of locals selling scarves scarves scarves galore, and we went a little scarf-crazy! It was fun, though, and we all got a bunch of gifts for friends and family. The girls each got a papaya salad, and I took photos of two little girls swinging happily in their hammocks and giving me the peace-symbol with their fingers for my photo snapping.

Eventually, it was time to be on our way. Where should we go next? Another temple, or this lake that the Australians had told us about? Let's go to the lake. The other girls were 'templed out' and it was a hot day- we were hoping we could swim. So, we rode on our motorbikes another 20km or so, maybe more, and arrived at the lake. It was a huge expanse, but was quite low in its level, and it didn't look like much swimming was available, at least not to the public. We decided to ride further around the lake to see what more there was (where we arrived to there were many food booths of Cambodians selling food and drinks, all staring at us, but in a friendly way). We continued on down the road for about 3 minutes, which was dusty, gravely, and had many potholes. I pulled over and said to Molly who was just behind me 'What do you want to do? I think we should turn back- the road is just going to go on like this.' She agreed. We passed on our sentiments to Lucila, and she agreed.

So, we turned back, and pulled over at the food stand area. We sat down at a table and ordered coconuts to drink and eat. Then, I noticed a plate of food that a woman was eating, and she noticed me eyeing it hungrily. She offered me a bite, and I liked it! Some sort of vegetable-fried-egg-something or other but whatever it was I liked it! So there was some gesturing to indicate that she could make me some, (or so I thought) so I nodded my head 'yes,' and nexdt thing you know I am being handed a plate of papaya salad. Hmm. I tried explaining the confusion, pointing to the vegetables on the woman's plate, and so they threw a couple of green beans and carrots onto my plate. Then I began saying the word 'egg' and they took a hard-boiled egg and chopped it into quarters and put THAT on my plate. This was a nice gesture and all, but, I was trying to explain that what they served me was totally different from what they had just given me a bite of. Oh well. I do not love papaya salad like the rest of the traveling world, and it has too much sweetness for my sugar-sensitive self, so, I gave it back, and it was all good.

When we were done with our coconuts, we walked to the edge of the lake which was actually from a high up cement wall, with a long row of steps descending down to the water's edge. There were a bunch of Cambodian girls watching a bunch of Cambodian boys running and jumping into the water, swimming and splashing. Some other boys and girls were in the water wading around, collecting ducks and putting them in plastic bags for later eating (I assumed at least). It was a fascinating scene, and the three of us girls stayed and took photos for a good half an hour.

It was really great, because we were all three always on the same page. We were good at stating our needs and desires, and saying when we were done with where we were. We were all emotionally sensitive women, but also tough, adventurous, and straight-forward in our communication. It was a great combination, and we all had spicy personalities to go with our sensitive natures and enjoyment of meaningful conversation.

So, we were getting tired, but decided to take the long way back to town in order to see different roads. I was at the back of this 3-person lineup, and at one point, I got quite far behind due to a truck in front of me. So, I spent a good 5-10 minutes trying to catch up to the other 2 ladies, and when I finally did, I didn't want to fall behind again. So, when they took a left turn rather fast onto a major road, and I thought 'Wow, that seems a bit fast for me to follow, I don't know if the traffic will be the same by the time I take the turn', I hesitated but then braked, and wound up skidding on some sandy gravely road, and fell onto my left side with the bike onto the ground.

I immediately jumped up, and checked my body to make sure it was all still there, and the engine was still running on the bike when I looked down at it. And then it stopped. My left arm was badly scraped with some serious road rash, and my left knee hurt a little bit, but luckily I was wearing long and rather thick pants so my leg was fine. I picked up my bike as calmly and steadily as I could, as the other two girls came back to see if I was okay. We pulled over to the side of the road, and I took a few breaths and decided what my condition was. It was okay, but I decided we should cross the road and get a drink of water and sit for a few minutes to let my system calm down a bit, and to use the toilet as well.

An older Cambodian lady was there with her daughters, and they had seen the accident, and were offering me a seat, and also showed us to their toilet (another sheltered squatting hole, as per usual in these parts). She sold me a water, and kept offering to bandage my arm, but it had so much black and dirt and tiny gravel in it, that I just wanted to let it be for now, and give it a real good washing when we got back.

We thanked the lady, and got back on our bikes to head back to the hotel, when I realized that the left foot-rest was jammed out of place, and was now angled upwards making it difficult for me to shift. So, after riding about 3 feet, I told the girls we needed to fix this, and rode 2 houses down to the mechanic. The guys smiled when we approached, and the only one who could speak a tiny bit of English said they had seen my fall (apparently everyone within 300 feet had seen!) and basically he got a large metal tube, fitted it around the foot rest, and stepped hard onto it like a crank, and, voila! It was fixed. He wasn't expecting money, but I offered him some and he accepted it. Now, we were really on our way, but this time, I was extra careful, and took my time no matter what the girls were doing ahead of me.

We all took an hour out to shower, and I took care of my painful stinging left arm, which took some serious time and care. We had dinner across the street again at our now-favorite restaurant, and had another great 3-hour night of conversation of it. And again, our friends the Cambodian local guys joined us for a bit, chatting, and also taught us how to count in Khmer, amongst some other phrases.

None of us wanted to go to bed, because we were all 3 leaving early the next morning for 3 different places, but, we were tired once again, and hugged just in case we didn't see each other in the morning. I could have traveled with these ladies for a year, and we were all sad that our amazing time together was so quickly coming to an end. But we recognized just how lucky we were to have found each other, and looked forward to hearing about each other's future adventures. It was a great day, even with motorbike accident included, and a great 3 days we had spent together (including the day of the boat ride!)

I was off to Bangkok by bus the next morning at 7:30am, and had an 8-hour ride in store! The plan was to go to Chiang Mai after that before going back to the US sometime by/before the 25th-28th, for an unknown amount of time (a few days? two weeks? should I do a massage course afterall? or just go for a few days since I am feeling so tired?) I decided to just wait until I got to Bangkok to see how I felt, and decide then. In the meantime, it was time for sleep, and I slept awkwardly with my arm at a weird angle to protect it, but slept deep and well.