So we bought bicycles last week, because we live about 15-20 minutes walking from the center of town. And EVERYONE here has bikes or scooters. Our friend took us down to the local bicycle wholesaler (down an alley near the Phsar lined with produce vendors on either side. They pay $20-30 US per month for a one meter section of concrete in front of the businesses in which to sell their produce in the morning and you just climb over melons, tomatoes, and squash to get into the shops they are set up in front of.). We purchased used bikes, refurbished in Japan, for $40 each, including headlight, basket, and lock.
Also, it’s hot here and I wear a lot of skirts…and still haven’t figured out how to be a lady while riding my bike in a skirt…not that I’m really good at being ladylike anyway. So today, I am wearing a flowy wrap skirt that comes to just past my knees, and I thought it would be fine because it’s longer and a bit flowy (like another skirt I ride in sometimes). I also thought that, because it was a wrap skirt, it would be less likely to ride up in the breeze. Or that if it did at least my crotch would still be covered by one layer. I could not have been more wrong.
On the way into town, I gave Angelina Jolie in that thigh bearing slitted dress from the Oscars a few years ago a run for her money…right thigh bared practically to my crotch and left leg completely covered to below the knee.
So on the way home I thought I would be clever and tie the front part of my skirt to another part of my skirt to keep it in place. That didn’t work so well either. After riding for a minute, it filled with air like a giant parachute that threatened to show off my ladybits to everyone.
I always try to remind myself that nobody is really paying attention to anyone else because we are all caught up in our own little worlds. But I am fairly certain that today I was that crazy white girl on a wobbly bicycle about to show off my undies as I rode past, crazy curly hair flying out from underneath my sunhat.
You look like Julia Robert in Bali. Smile.
LOL Thanks so much! We were just talking about what a great time we had last year in Melaka. May have to come back and stay again soon!