Exercise, Sunsets and Sucking it up

I had to break the news to Yuan today that I’d bought myself a motorbike and would no longer be needing his services. I really felt quite bad about it and it took me until the afternoon to get the courage up, I've paid him for the week as I wanted to give him some notice and I don't know if that's more to ease my feeling of guilt or to keep paying him for just a bit longer. A friend had said that Motodop drivers struggle to earn about a dollar a day and here was me giving Yuan $4 a day, which has hopefully helped that little bit. One day on coming out from work I find him waiting for me and reading a pamphlet on English lessons and I hoped that to some degree I was making those English lessons possible for him. However, a week later the Moto is running like a hairy goat and I think I was actually quite lucky to be making it to work and back each day. He took the motorbike in over the weekend to be fixed and it cost him $70, a massive amount of money when you’re earning $1 a day or even $4 a day. (In Australian terms that would amount to approximately the equivalent of $15,000 to $20,000.) And then I have to go and break the news to him that his $4 a day is about to disappear before his eyes??? Crap! Still, all I can do is hope that he has been sensible with the money he’s earnt so far and that his positive Buddhist philosophy kicks in. As I’ve already paid Yuan for the coming week, there’s every chance he might not turn up for our next journey to MEDiCAM. But, my faith in my believe that human beings will generally do the “right thing” is restored as I open my gate the next morning and see him sitting there on his motorbike waiting for me, the usual big smile on his face. I’ve bought a flashing rear light for my pushbike and get some funny reactions from young Khmers as they ride past me on my way to attend the NataRaj Yoga centre on Monday night. I really enjoy the experience of gently pushing my body into the extremes of its capability in a yoga class. After years of running and cycling there’s just no way my calves are ever going to stretch enough to place my feet flat on the ground in “downward dog” but I’m definitely up for the challenge of seeing how much closer to flat I can get them. I’ll be the first to admit however, that I have a very short attention span and find my mind is wandering throughout the class to what I’m going to have for dinner when I’m meant to be “with my breath”. Oh well, onwards and upwards or should that be downwards! I took myself off for lunch today at Khmer “Starbucks” – they’ve improved on the menu since I was last there. They now have the meals written in English so you can more accurately order what you want. I say, more accurately, because although I ordered Fried Rice with Chicken today I got served some kind of pork dish. If I was at home I probably would have told them it was the wrong order and got then to replace it but here I just look it as an opportunity to try something I might not otherwise have tried. I’d been feeling a bit out of sorts today so decide that going for a run and getting my blood coursing through my veins is just what is required. And so, I jump on my lovely white stead with the white-wall tires and run the gauntlet of traffic along Sihanouk Boulevard to the Independence Monument. I feel every trip on my bike is a daredevil adventure where only those with the fleetest-of-wheel, keenest of vision and nerves of steel, survive! Well, it’s not quite that bad but you get the picture. I can’t wait to start riding my Scooby to work next week! All my lovely Khmer friends have beaten me there and are already exercising – there are hundreds of them! Mostly walking, but also playing badminton, some kind of football and there’s a couple of runners besides me as well. (That’s good! when I used to run at lunchtime in Dublin, 10 years ago, I was always the only one.) It really is a social outing; children are playing, non exercisers are sitting and watching and entrepreneurs are peddling their wares. These amount to, bottles of water and other adventurous drinks as well as sets of domestic bathroom scales, obviously to check if the exercise is actually doing some good. The Independence Monument sits at the top of this park where all the action is taking place. It is like a massive medium strip surrounded by busy roads on all edges. It has a wide expanse of grassed area in the middle with a footpath traveling all the way around the edge and crossing it in sections. I stop after my run to sit and watch one of the many football games, taking place all along one edge of the park. The game is fast and furious and they’re playing on concrete with only two of the players wearing shoes. The goals are sets of jandals, the sidelines; the grassed verge on one side and the road and passing traffic on the other. The ball is small (about the size of a coconut) hollow and made out of cane, I think. It’s tough though or maybe it’s just lucky and manages to miss the cars wheels as it frequently rolls out into the traffic. Most of them play in tshirts and jeans which make it seem like they’ve just started up an impromptu game, but I have a feeling that these guys have been coming here for years developing their skills. Groups of Monks stroll past me in their beautiful tangerine coloured gowns as the sun is setting behind the Monument on another beautiful Khmer day. A friend Ang, wrote on her Faceook today what I thought was a great quotation: “Life is tough, Suck it up”. It made me stop and think that it’s usually the people that are the worst off that actually do, just that. They “suck it up”. Maybe the easier we have it the more whinging and complaining we do?? And no, that trait is definitely not just reserved for those lovely friends of ours from the UK – lets just listen to ourselves for a while; “it’s too hot”, “it’s too cold”, “petrol is soo expensive”, “that b@@stard just dared to try and move into my lane”, “there’s no time to do anything”, “there’s too many bus lanes”, “cyclists should be banned from existence”, “if only people weren’t so stupid” etc, etc – we’re all guilty of it. Ok, so it’s all relative you say, but maybe, we’ve actually lost a bit of our touch with reality. Maybe we should just practice “sucking it up” a bit more. I’m going to try, anyway.