Tuk tuks will always conduct sudden U-turns in front of you, bicycles will career out of side-roads without a sideways glance, and car drivers will weave along lazily at any speed they feel like. Tour buses will swerve recklessly onto the wrong side of the road to overtake motorcyclists, threatening to meet you head-on. Motorcyclists can drive with manic speed, or pootle along with seemingly no hands on the handlebars while sipping a drink using one hand and texting with the other. Groups of teenagers will dawdle along on their motorbikes chatting to each other, three abreast and in no great hurry, blocking the road and making other frustrated motorists swerve onto the wrong side of the road to get past. Cyclists will catch lifts from motorcyclists, hooking onto the side to be towed along.
You will have to navigate around street food vendors trundling their stalls along the road, trash collectors dragging their hand carts, and tiny children shakily commandeering adult-sized bicycles, two or three at a time. You will also be alarmed occasionally by the sight of pre-teen boys driving mopeds without a care in the world. Motorcycles will carry precariously-balanced loads including ten-foot ladders, lengths of pipe, sacks of trash, clusters of buckets, bunches of green coconuts and racks of live ducks. On occasion a funeral procession along a main road will cause tailbacks for miles. You might find yourself inching along at walking pace, matching speed with the schoolchildren who trail the coffin float, clutching lotus flowers and incense sticks.
The rules of the road in Cambodia are a little more relaxed than we're used to back home. It's normal to see a driver float onto the left side of the road long before a junction in order to make a left turn. Then if they can't immediately cross to the right side of the new road, rather than stop, they will turn onto the left side and drive into oncoming traffic until they can merge over. (In Cambodia, driving is 'officially' on the right.) People will drive on the wrong side of the road, the wrong way up a 'one-way' street, and run traffic lights where they exist at all (they're few and far between). Where traffic lights do exist, they're less of a strict signal and more of a guideline: there appear to be no hard and fast rules about road positioning, so junctions can become a free-for-all. If it's possible to cut a corner by driving across a petrol station forecourt, people will do it without a qualm.
Apart from the other road users, you also have to contend with frequent potholes, rocks, debris, piles of sand, stray dogs running around, unmade road surfaces, unlit roads, and the giant foul-smelling puddles that collect as soon as the rainy season starts. At the height of the hot season, wearing a full helmet with the visor down is like having your head in an oven, but leave the visor open and you will quickly get your eyes, nose and mouth full of dust, grit and bugs.
Another hazard is the threat of bag snatching. It's a fairly regular occurrence to hear of local criminals targeting lone female cyclists (or, less commonly, motorcyclists) and attempting to snatch belongings out of bike baskets, off the victim's shoulder, or even out of their hand. It's advisable for women to avoid cycling alone, especially during hours of darkness. If you do have to, take only the bare minimum of valuable possessions, and stow them in a small purse that can be worn under the clothes, or invest in a zip-close cover for your bike basket.
Traffic police exist, but from common hearsay, their only interest is picking out drivers to fine for not wearing a helmet, not having two attached wing mirrors, or driving the wrong way up a one-way street. The normal charge for this kind of infringement hovers around 3000-5000 riel (more or less 1 USD). From what I've seen, if you see the police in time and are committing one of the above infringements, they will not chase you if you simply turn around and drive away.
Although the roads are mayhem for the above reasons, it's mayhem that just kind of works, somehow. The advantage of there being no particular road rules is that you know there are no rules. You come to expect people to cut you up left, right and centre, so within a short space of time it doesn't surprise you any more. Apart from a few manic speeders, most road users go fairly sedately in built-up areas, so you can just go with the flow. There is normally plenty of time to anticipate and avoid hazards. My top tips, then:
- If in doubt, slow down...
- ...but keep moving if possible.
- Always wear a helmet
- Don't carry anything snatchable (includes: don't use your phone as a flashlight while cycling!)
- Expect the unexpected, at all times, and from every possible direction.
