Hello Moto!

Sorry to blog again so quickly, but Exciting Events occur thick and fast in the life of one who is so Li Hi.

Firstly, I ran 3.8 miles (kind of) this evening in about 40 minutes (ish), which demonstrates Great Progress in the Impossible Build Up to Angkor Wat.  Tomorrow, if my legs have not fallen off, I will run 4 miles.  I will. I will.

Also, I got to the gym today riding my very own new toy.  Please may I introduce to you, Little Moto:

Little Moto is hired from a very relaxed American man who English Teacher A thinks is constantly high on drugs.  I think he just has a calm aura and does not have to deal with the rat race of modern Western society.  I too shall return to the UK with a vague, glazed look in my eyes and a general approval of most things and nonchalant shrug of the shoulders in response to any crisis.

Little Moto has also been sitting in his basement for the last two weeks, and has been taken for run arounds circling my apartment block.  I have only used third gear (there are four), and on one occasion panicked and reacted by accelerating onto a grass verge.  Lolz!  Of course, therefore, I thought it was definitely a good idea to take it out into this kind of traffic this evening:

This isn't even a particularly stressful image, but it's the best I've got.  Maybe this is for the best because the next question is, hands up if you fear for my personal safety right now?  Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  I do!  But don't worry: I'm wearing a helmet which means I'm ensured against all evils, and the healthcare I have here is like staying in a 5 star hotel.

Luckily, I also had the chivalry of ETA who agreed to let me pootle along behind him to the gym.  He was a true knight in shining armour: he even took me to the petrol station and stopped by the side of the road whenever he thought he'd lost me, and gave me useful hints and tips at key moments like, "When we cross this part of the HIGHWAY OF DEATH we have very little road to get over to the left, but just go for it, and everyone will go around you."  The general consensus is that as long as you don't make any sudden movements or ride too fast, everyone will go around you, which will be my Rule of Thumb from now on.

HOWEVER on the way home (in the dark, on the HIGHWAY OF DEATH), some fool (Vietnamese drivers are, generally incredibly sensible and aware, despite what might seem to us ignorant Westerners to be complete and utter chaos) cut up a dry bamboo wagon (the latest and flashiest mode of transport in Vietnam) and the poor bamboo driver came smashing to the ground and all his bamboo was flung across the road.  The scooter couple also came off their moped and I had to swerve around them, using all my spidey sense to avoid collision.  Of course, my spidey sense is a sharp, honed instrument of death-avoidance and I zipped by unscathed.  Both ETA and I stopped because we are British and began to go back to see if everyone was alright, but then a traffic policeman rocked up and we had to run away because traffic policemen know that we don't understand them or, essentially, the exact Vietnamese Green Cross Code, and explain kindly to us that there is a fine for being a white person driving a moped, and you have to reach into your bribe purse and pull out the 'only money you have on you', and ask, apologetically how much the fine is.  It seems tough, but those traffic police have to get their kicks somehow.

Mummy, Daddy, if it helps, you can imagine that none of this is happening.