Gas station, Siem Reap, Cambodia, December 2002

(That's gas in those old soda bottles. Don't try to buy a Sprite.)
(The kid works there.)

The first time I ever drove anything with a manual shift was on a rented motorbike in Koh Chang, Thailand, one year ago. That was also the first time I ever drove on the left side of the road. The hilly island's roads followed drops so steep and turns so sharp, that when they occurred in certain combinations, they would send me into a panic. On one of the worst turns, I leaned so hard on the brakes that the bike simply fell over from lack of momentum. The patient truck driver on the road behind me pulled over and got out, picked up my bike, and drove it, with me clinging shaking and speechless to the back, to the bottom of the hill. I got the feeling he'd done that before.

Even just riding in taxis and buses, I couldn't quite get used to being on the left side of the road. Some small mental policeman kept screeching about me going the wrong way. So in a taxi from the airport in Siem Reap, Cambodia, I was relieved to find myself again on the right. Thailand and Cambodia share a land border though, and my friend and I wondered how that worked at the crossing: do cars at that point have to cross to the other side? We asked the driver, his English was good.

Cambodia doesn't actually have an official side of the road to drive on, he told us with what I could swear was bemused pride. People just kind of drive wherever, although people in certain cities at particular times generally try to drive in agreement. That agreement just might vary from day to day and hour to hour. And with that, he lurched into the middle of the road, with motorbikes streaming past us on both sides, to prove his point.