My brother loves motorcycles. He bought one about three years ago and now he has a different one. It's a funny story how that happened, actually. The day he got hit by a car on his bike two years ago, he went up on the windshield and fell next to the driver's side window. What's ever funnier is that he asked the passengers if they were ok! He didn't even have a scratch. That's my brother though.

When he returned back to my father's house with the bike on a tow truck, I happened to be standing outside. He wheeled it into the garage, but I didn't seem to notice that it was totaled. I also didn't collect that having to tow his bike meant that he probably crashed.

"Is it ok if I use your bathroom?" asked the dirty fourty-something tow truck driver. His hands were wrinkly and covered with oil and he wore navy blue coveralls with a patch from his tow company.

"Um, no problem," said my brother as we all walked into my father's cleaner-than-a-virgin-hooker-on-antibiotics home. (I'm sorry, that description may have offended some of you. Unfortunately, all keyboards in Cambodia are missing backspace keys, so it'll have to stay.) The tow guy walked past my father who was watching TV, waved to him, did his business and took off. After he drove away, my brother and I returned inside.

"Who was that?" my father asked.

My brother, not wanting to tell my father about the bike quickly answered, "Oh, just one my friends."

"Oh, ok" responded my father pleasantly and went on with his business.

That's just the way that things happen sometimes in the Rosenberg households (it's plural for a reason--I've got parents everywhere). There are other stories like the one about the duck doorstop or making my sister show my father her tongue ring. In the famous words of David Byrne, I'll tell you later.

In honor of my brother, I rented Dyn-o-mite today ($7 for 24 hours, cheaper if you rent for a week) to explore the Cambodian countryside. What's the deal with Dyn-o-mite? It just needed a name kind of like a pet or a boat or a guitar or a nice lamp in your living room.

I took a day off from the orphanage because my friend Neil (who hosts his own blog) was planning to take a day trip and I wanted to come along. Dyn-o-mite is a 250cc manual transmission dirt bike with a clutch. That means that it goes really fast and has big wheels and a clutch too. My dear friend, Serena, had taught me to drive a manual transmission car right before I left, but I only drove a few blocks and I wouldn't call myself a pro. I borrowed Neil's bike for a moment and drove around in a dirt yard, trying to figure things out. Once I was able to start it and clumsily shift from neutral to first gear, we took off.

We rented these bikes in downtown Phnom Penh, a city of one million people. That means that I had to practice in downtown Phnom Penh where motorbikes weave through the cars directly at one another, playing chicken because it may end up saving them a total of two seconds. What fun! After watching Neil and Andrew (the other guy who rented a bike) weave around traffic for a couple kilometers, I thought I was ready.

Cops stand at the corners in Phnom Penh and pull over random motorbikes in order to receive bribes instead of giving tickets. The bribes generally amount to about 5000 riel, or about $1.25. I had never seen them do it, so I didn't know what to expect. While trying to follow Neil around the city, I saw a cop pointing at me out of the corner of my eye. Was that him trying to pull me over? That's a pretty weak communication if you ask me. Anyway, I'm involunerable, aren't I? Neil looked back at me but I couldn't see anything on his face because he was wearing a helmet. Oh well. I'll just keep going. As I drove away, I looked back to see the cop staring at me with his arms at his side. Was he really trying to pull me over?

A few more kilometers down the road, I was following behind a truck with Neil behind me. He motioned for me to pass the truck, suggesting that these bikes may have more power than I thought. I switched into fourth gear, gave it some gas and quite literally blew by the truck. These bikes can fly! Mom, I must be scaring the shit out of you. If that's the case, go to the bathroom--you know it's not proper to shit in the computer room. (Whoops! Remember--no backspace key).

After about an hour, we arrived at a Wat up on a mountain. I really wanted to take the bike up the mountain, but there were steps. There were 368 steps to be exact and the twenty Cambodian children following us around wouldn't let us forget that.

"One, two, tree, fo, fi, six, eleven, ei, ni'"

"No no. Seven comes after six."

"One, two, tree, fo, fi, six, eleven, ei, ni"

"Awesome. 368 steps, you say? You sure?"

We looked around fora while, admired the brown, dusty, Cambodian countryside and went on our way.

It didn't really matter where we were going. I was just happy driving around the bumpy dirt roads and admiring local life. I would consider the previous photo to be one of the smoothest dirt roads that we drove on. I unfortunately neglected to take any pictures of the others. There will be more days with dirt bikes, so I'll make sure to take a bunch.

Apparently, there are two temples in Cambodia called Ta Prohm. If you remember, Ta Prohm was my favorite temple at Angkor Wat. We stopped by Ta Prohm Jr. to take a look. When we arrived, we were pelted by young children trying to sell whatever they could find. There were no other foreigners around and it seemed like there hadn't been any for a while.

"You want flower? Pretty flower for gir'friend?"
"How 'bout incense for Buddha sir?"
"Give me one dollar sir."
"I watch motorbike. You pay me?"
"Here, Nathan, how 'bout a handful of dirt? You'd probably prefer it over all the other total crap that we're trying to shove down your throat."

We walked around the temple a bit, dodging the thousands of Cambodians with their multiple methods of attemping to take our money. I overheard one of them ask another in Khmer, "Do you think those white people have souls and hearts and real personality under all their coats of green American dollars? Probably not." Ok, so that didn't really happen. I'm so cynical today, but remember, no backspace key. Before taking off, we stopped for a group picture. From left to right is Andrew, a fellow ultimate player from Minnesota, Rosie, who claimed later at dinner that she really wasn't trying to cover up her penis with the helmet, Martin, who was mentioned previously on the site (ha! I think I've said too much), next is that Jewish kid, and Neil on the far right.

After the temple, we stopped by a nearby tourism lake. It seemed as if one could rent the huts to use for swimming in the lake, but we didn't really feel like it. Neil said it was because his toe had gangrene but I wasn't swimming because the water was the color of a cup of coffee with three spoons of cream.

The ride back to Phnom Penh was a riot as usual. I improved my skills at weaving around rush hour traffic and shooting through the one meter wide gaps in attempt to not lose the other two bikes (Martin and Rosie rode with Neil and Andrew, respectively).

Over dinner and a couple of pitchers of Anchor Smooth, Neil, who works here in Phnom Penh, told me about the cops.

"Oh yeah, he was trying to pull you over. You did the right thing though, it's better just to drive away from the cops here. Well, usually it's better. Sometimes they hit you over the head with their baton and I bet that hurts a lot."

"Does that happen a lot?" I asked, with a bit a trepidation in my voice.

"I've never heard of happening, but that doesn't mean anything."

It's a crapshoot, y'know. $1.25 is a lot of money here.

All day, I thought of my wonderful brother, Andrew, and wished for a teleporter to bring him to Phnom Penh. He could take a plane, but not until June because he works at a school. The teleporter could provide for a nice weekend trip.

Andrew has a heart twice as big as the orphanage could ever use and these dirt bikes only cost $750. It's possible to teach English to children here and make $12-$15 per hour, which is plenty of money to live if you work about 15 hours per week. Living in a wonderful villa with a full time maid and security guard costs $100 per month and you can probably eat for about $3 per day. I swear I'm not trying to sell this travel thing to you, Andrew.

Tomorrow, I'm back to the orphanage. I really missed Anya today. I wonder if she missed me.