Our new family vehicle

Having decided that a car would be more of a headache than a help in this city, we bought a motorbike. On the streets of Phnom Penh motorbikes outnumber cars and this is probably the most common model-a Dae Lim Citi. I really wish I'd had my camera at the motorbike shop because we bought this bike from a shop with hundreds of identical red Dae Lims. As you can see from the long seat, it is considered a family vehicle. One of the Khmer staff at school helped us to select this bike and encouraged us to buy something boring and unattractive like this one so, as he put it, we "wouldn't get our throat cut." Many of the staff have nicer bikes and are still living, but we decided we'd like to have something that didn't draw attention. Not having ridden a motorbike much, I've mostly ridden around the neighborhood to get used to it. Some of the students from Hope saw me the other day and apparently told their parents, "I saw Mr. Eric's wife on the motorbike and now there's someone who rides even slower than mom!"