Motorcycles in Cambodia

By Laura Siciliano - It was a place I never thought I would find myself: squashed between a hired driver and my impossibly full backpack on the surprisingly hard seat of a 250cc motorcycle. The wind was in my face, the pain in my backside, the rice fields to my left and right. Did I mention I was careening down the bumpy roads of Cambodia’s countryside?

Everything had happened so quickly over dinner and drinks the night before in the capital city of Phnom Penh. After a day of sightseeing, my partner and I joined “Martin” and “Peter,” the two Cambodian motorbike drivers we had been using since our arrival in the country, for a beer at a little hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant near our guesthouse. The “beer” turned into several hours of drinking, communal dining from a large pot of vegetable-and-beef-parts soup and the brilliant idea that we should cancel our scheduled air conditioned minibus the next day to Sihanoukville in favor of renting motorcycles with Martin and Peter. The motorbikes they had been carting us around town in were simply too small and slow to cover the 253km distance to the south coast beach town. We craved adventure and liked our new friends, so it seemed a good idea despite the higher cost of renting bikes and paying drivers. With a clink of our beer bottles, it was settled.

Yet the next morning, feeling slightly hungover, I felt the first twinges of doubt as I watched Martin and Peter heave our enormous bags onto the back of the bikes and struggle to secure them with rope. Last night, the motorcycles sounded huge, plenty of room for us and the bags. Now I was looking at about six inches of space in which to cram my body.

“OK! We go!” they called, smiling. They were obviously excited for this opportunity to be paid for driving cool bikes.

They handed us our helmets, which we had pointedly asked for, and revved up the motors. I squeezed myself on, feeling assured that at least I would not fall off from such a tight spot, and we took off down the muddy, pot-holed roads of Phnom Penh amid stares from our neighbors. I imagined it was not everyday they saw real motorcycles, especially not with Westerners and all their belongings precariously strapped on. I clung to Peter for dear life until we turned onto one of the city’s main boulevards; with its wide, smoothly paved lanes, it was perfect for speeding. Now this was fun. I smiled knowingly at the crawling buses we sped around and waved to the twenty or so locals spilling out of the windows and crouched upon the roofs. If they only knew how much better this was!  

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