about the traffic...

Although I have probably not prepared my mother well-enough for the contents of this blog post.... Let me share with you a bit about traffic here: 

Imagine a conventional paved city street, perhaps some crumbling sidewalks... then add SUV's and cars, motorcycles (called motos) with sometimes whole families on the back,  motorcycles with attached carriages (locally known as tuk tuks), bicycles with the old-school baskets on the front, the occasional van so full that various limbs spill out of the windows... 

Instead of actually staying within the lanes, all participants criss cross, turning into oncoming traffic while others drive directly towards then. (Have you ever found yourself driving down a one-way street going the wrong direction? Now imagine that in slow motion....) 

And that's the thing. It's all quite slow, and even friendly I would say. People honk, but not angry honks...just a little "hello, I'm right behind you and want to pass, so please give me a little space" kind of honk. It's a lot of stop and go.

There is a heirarchy though, and bigger wins. So if you're on a moto and a car wants to pass or turn in front of you, you move over or stop and let them go. SUV's trump cars, who trump tuk tuks, who trump motos, who trump bikes, who trump pedestrians.... 

Ok, so now...imagine crossing this street. :-) It's a bit of a plunge, but plunge you must, for if you waited until the entire road was clear you'd NEVER get across! A better word would be inch. You inch across. You wait until there's a little space, and you walk out as far as you can, and then wait for the oncoming car or the moto to pass you, and then you walk out a little farther, and wait for the next wave of traffic to pass, and again and again until you reach the other side. The COOL thing though is that because the traffic lanes are quite relative, drivers have a much wider girth--so they kind of just drive around you! It's almost like swimming. The traffic parts around you like waves of water. A bit like Moses in the Red Sea...  Ok, maybe that's a little over the top, but you get the gist. 

So there it is. Traffic is more like swimming than driving. And actually this brings me to another point about traffic during rainy season (of which we are nearing the tail end), as it has been raining nearly nonstop for 48 hours. Sometimes driving, or walking....involves wading. Like yesterday when I ran an errand with a coworker and stepped out of the car onto the street into calf-deep floodwater. (My leather sandals are still drying). Or last night when I rode a moto in the rain with a friend to hear Brian McLaren speak at an International church here and spent the entire evening with soggy pants. (Another coworker left the same event and flooded her moto trying to drive through water up to her thighs near her neighborhood. Apparently being wet--either from sweat or rain--is a way of life in Cambodia).

Inching and swimming. That's traffic here.