Motorcycles in Cambodia

In the end, over eight hours had passed before we reached Kampot and limped into our hotel rooms for the night. After paying for their dinner and accommodation, we bid Martin and Peter farewell the next morning to continue our journey by car, still 105 kilometers from Sihanoukville and unable to face the prospect of another long day on the motorcycle. We easily located a taxi driver who would get us to our destination for $5 each within three hours and promised not to overfill the car with passengers, a practice to watch out for here.

I sank back into my comfortable cushioned seat and watched small slices of Cambodian life fly by my window: small children sitting atop ox-drawn carts, wallowing water buffalo disobeying their farmers, tiny villages bordering endless flat, glossy rice fields, broken by clusters of tall coconut palms. I couldn’t help but notice all the potential photographs I was missing out on or wonder what friendly new Cambodians we might have met along the way if we had stuck with the bikes. Would those rice farmers bundling up their harvest on the side of the road have invited us in for tea? Would those small, playful children have posed for our cameras too? Maybe or maybe not, but in choosing the taxi, we had unwittingly prevented such possibilities from existing.

I reflected on the subjective nature of travel. With the decision to go somewhere comes a slew of choices regarding accommodation, travel arrangements, food, activities. The possibilities are endless on the surface, but beneath those lie infinite more—possibilities we cannot anticipate but must learn to embrace. For what is travel if not the secular answer to what is possible? Travel opens up the world to its inhabitants, and the best kind of travel—open-minded, spontaneous—makes anything feel possible. But more specifically, as I learned on my cramped motorcycle that day in Cambodia, it is often the literal act of the word—to travel, to get from place to place—which presents the most unexpected possibilities and memorable experiences… but only if we let it.  

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