Well Sidney was due to arrive at between 6pm and 7pm by taxi and telephone number - my telephone number. Now my Khmer is, as you know, fluent. I can buy just about anything, I can order what I like in a restaurant (as long as it is rice, chicken and coffee) however directing a taxi driver worried me a little!! Just as you would expect the phone rang, I smiled at it and handed it over to my lovely landlady's daughter. Ten minutes later a taxi arrived with a bike tied to the back. The bike in the picture, it is red and has pedals which I am expected to push using my own leg power rather than engine power. She is a brand new mountain bike which I am sure Bunthorn will enjoy riding.

As I pushed her away the two men were opening the doors - Sidney obviously had to travel inside the taxi, after all he is getting on in life, rusty in parts but I loved him and was pleased he had had a comfortable journey. After pushing my bike into the house I went back out to welcome Sidney and it wasn't him. I don't know who it is but Sidney is no more.

At the moment my new bike is sitting outside, I have been assured it will be safe and I don't see why it won't be as the gates are locked every night. I do like my family one of the lads saw the bike and the paper work that came with it, took the card and went and checked that the taxi had delivered the right bike, it would never have occured to me that they wouldn't!!

Half an hour after writing the above I had a visitor from next door telling me to bring the new boy in my life inside so he and my red bike spent the night safe and warm in my living room. Good thing it is a mansion.

Something I fail to understand; I should leave my shoes outside but I can ride my motorbike straight in. I just love Cambodia.