After the Holiday

Trash on city street

Cambodia has a real problem with holidays.  First of all, there are 25 public holidays (the U.S. has 11) so more than a month of work days is lost.  Then whenever a public holiday falls on a Saturday, the following Monday is given off, too.  (That happened October 3rd because the Pchum Ben holiday was Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).

Besides all the time off and lost productivity, the trash piles up as seen above.  Households here do not use garbage cans or dumpsters.  Everything is put in plastic bags and left on the street.  When there is a long holiday, the piles get rather large.

The man squatting in the picture is putting air in a motorcycle tire.  His “gas station” consists of the orange air compressor and a bucket of water and a patch kit for repairing flat tires.

2 thoughts on “After the Holiday”

  1. Dear Charlie: I am delighted that you are up and running again with your blog postings. And what a relief that you didn’t lose any of the last 16 years of posts, those represent much contemporary history in words and photos.

    1. Hi, Jim…. And thanks for your comment! It’s the first one I have had in sixteen years with a website. I never had the option of Comments before so it will be a new experience to see Who says What!

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