AsiaLIFE

I'm an American. That means I drive a car. It also means I don't get enough exercise, rarely interact with my neighbours and listen to too much talk radio – which is a longer way of saying I'm an American and, like most Americans, I spend too much time in a car. But for several of my years in Cambodia, I was – by American standards – a dangerous counterculture hippie, whose shenanigans caused the housing bubble to burst and the Big Three American car companies to flirt with collapse, at least according to some crazed right-wing pundits. That's right, my trusted mode of transportation was a bicycle.

Cycling in the Penh

Of course, in Cambodia relying on pedal power as your primary mode of transportation isn't that irregular. Most poor Cambodians do, and many expats have either brought their love of cycling to Cambodia or rediscovered it shortly after arriving. There was even a monthly Critical Mass rally in Phnom Penh for a while. Phnom Penh, really almost all of Cambodia, is perfect for cycling. It's flat and level, the weather is consistently balmy, and traffic rarely moves faster than a vigorous pedal. The hordes of schoolchildren and other commuters on bicycle mean that motorists are at least somewhat aware of cyclists’ presence. And best of all, police officers assume anyone on a bicycle is too poor to shake down and never demand bribes from cyclists – even if you’re two metres tall and white as a freshly laundered sheet.

If you're in Cambodia and you haven't explored the city and the countryside by pedal power, I strongly urge you to give it a shot. Bicycles are easy to rent, and cheap to buy – the bicycle I bought from a slightly shady shop near Phsar O'Russei even came with a bike lock. The bike lock didn't have a key and obviously hadn't been effective enough to keep it where ever the original owner had wanted it to stay, but the shopkeeper was gracious enough to saw it off with a broad grin. He even sold me another lock, one with a key.

That kind of service mentality is always on display everywhere in Cambodia. Flats are rarely a problem because – at least in the city – there's almost always someone within sight kitted out with a patch kit and air pump. Sometimes it seems that half the people on the streets derive their income from patching tyres. Rumour has it that when business is slow they toss tacks on the road to drum up more customers, though I've never seen that happen. The average tube in Cambodia is more patch than original tube, so they don't need much help going flat.

Road Trip

Rides through the countryside are a lot of fun too, if you don't mind navigating ruts and bumpy roads. Every village has a hut with a selection of snacks and drinks for near constant refreshments. It's not a tour of the French wine country, but it has its perks. On such a lone tour of the countryside one day, a freak accident led to one of the nicest things a Cambodian ever did for me. Many, many kilometres outside of the town of Pursat, on a backroad south of town, the bolt that held the saddle to the frame of my bike snapped. Trying to pedal a seatless bicycle is not a pleasant experience.

Standing there on the road exhausted, wondering how I would survive a five-hour trudge back home with a broken bicycle and lamenting I had only brought along 1,500 riel (enough for a can of soda), a teenage girl asked if I was a Catholic missionary. I said no and explained that I worked with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She spoke to her father, and without a word he gave me a ride home on motorbike. No charge. Life is better on a bicycle. Something to keep in mind the next time I'm stuck in an American traffic jam.

Will Koenig is a journalist in Oregon, where he lives with his wife and son. E-mail him at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .