"Elizabeth! Like the Queen of England!"

Most of the traffic in Phnom Penh is motorcycles, with the occasional car, truck, bicycle, and tuk tuk. Motorcycle is also the preferred way to travel between the Cambodia Daily staff house and office, because, at one dollar a ride, it's cheaper than the tuk tuk, which charges two or three dollars and is used mostly by foreigners.

After picking me up from the airport and bringing me by the office to meet the staff, the Daily’s assignment editor sends me off first thing with a tuk tuk driver, K., to buy a motorcycle helmet. K. drives me to a roadside stand where a woman is selling helmets wrapped in plastic. “Made in Thailand,” says K. of the helmets, and asks me which one I like best, all the while talking to the woman in Khmer. I pick a white helmet over the black and pink helmets because I decide I’m not cool enough for black and not cute enough for pink. The woman that sells me the motorcycle helmet is wearing Hello Kitty pajamas.

My first day at the Daily (yesterday), I chicken out and take a tuk tuk to work. Coming home from work, though, I take a motorcycle. I’d spent the previous night practicing fastening and unfastening the helmet’s tricky buckle so that I wouldn’t end up in an awkward “um, I’ll pay you in a second, let me just wrestle this helmet off my head” situation.

Because I’m wearing a skirt – albeit an ankle long skirt – I’m supposed to ride side saddle. I decide this is too advanced for me and indecently climb on anyway. The motorcycle seat looks to me big enough to seat maybe three relatively thin people, but Cambodians somehow manage to pack on a lot more than that. On the way into the city from the airport, the assignment editor tells me that he once saw seven Cambodians stacked on a motorcycle – though he concedes that a few of them were children.

I grip the back of my seat while the driver weaves through traffic on one of the busy main roads. I’m glad that the helmet is covering my terrified face and clenched teeth as we enter and whip around the roundabout at Independence Monument. This driver is efficient – that is, really fast. No one passes us. By the time we reach the staff house, and I flawlessly remove my head from the helmet, I’ve decided that I love motorcycles.

Today is my day off, and after I visit the National Museum (which I get to by motorcycle) I meet a tuk tuk driver who I ask to take me to a local restaurant. It turns out the restaurant doesn’t open for thrity minutes and the driver, M., suggests that we go to a nearby wat (temple), Wat Phnom, to pass the time.

Wat Phnom, site of the legendary origins of Phnom Penh, sits on the top of the highest hill in the city, in the middle of a park that is free for Cambodians and one dollar for foreigners. M. shows me the resident elephant and looks at me incredulously as I stop to take a picture of a big, grey monkey sitting on some steps (“haven’t you ever seen a monkey before?). We walk up the steep stairs to the wat and sit on a bench that overlooks the whole park. A sleepy looking police officer sits on the bench opposite us and watches us with mild interest.

He teaches me phrases in Khmer – like “what is your name?” – and asks me questions about American culture and English idioms, and I ask him a million questions about everything. He moved to Phnom Penh eight years ago from a village forty minutes outside the city and worked first as a bellboy in a hotel before leaving the job to become a tuk tuk driver. He has an eight-year- old daughter and his wife is expecting their second child in late July. If the child is a girl he wants to give her an American name and asks if I like the name “Hannah.” I tell him that one of my closest friends is named Hannah and he says it’s settled then – his daughter will be “Hannah.”

Number exchanged, I part ways with M. a few hours later, but he sees me again that afternoon wandering around outside the palace and asks if he can take me somewhere. The black clouds in the sky look suspicious so I ask him to take me to the staff house. As soon as I step inside my room, it starts to downpour outside. Excellent timing.

Right now, it’s storming harder and longer than I have ever seen in the United States. The sound of the rain on the roof and of the thunder is deafening, and the palm trees flail in the wind. Lightening flashes every few minutes. In almost every issue of the Cambodia Daily is a brief announcing another lightening death somewhere in Cambodia.