IVP - Strangely Dim - Kudos to Motos

Kudos to Motos

The odes are really starting to flow now that I'm not waking up at 2 a.m., so here, for your gasping pleasure, is yet another piece of my trip: Phnom Penh traffic. I can hear you asking, what is a moto? A definition, a photo, my ode, may help--but they can't give you the full picture. You really have to experience Phnom Penh traffic to imagine it. Even seeing it, I can't see how it works . . . But join me now, imaginative readers, in celebrating a perhaps heretofore overlooked mode of transportation.

Ode to Motos

Oh moto, you charm me:

threading through Phnom Penh streets
with grace and ease, your rubber meets
both cement and dirt, sidewalk and road
with ease and grace, whate'er the load
(you carry mattresses, balloons,
five men at once 'neath suns and moons,
or babies in their parent's arms,
papaya, ladders, rice from farms--
there's almost nothing you don't hold,
this, more than once, our team was told.)
Your riders drive with confidence
(and generally with less expense.)
You hardly ever have to stop
unless you see a watching cop;
at red lights you can simply slow
and weave amidst the coming flow
of traffic, people, ox-pulled carts.
Your feats did stop our sheltered hearts
more times than I can here recount.
For you, moto, respect did mount;
you're moving up among the ranks--

but I'll still drive my car with thanks.

Posted by Lisa Rieck at November 27, 2007 4:58 PM