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One characteristic of houses in the cities in Cambodia is that all the windows and doors are barred. On the left above is my front door. On top is the kitchen. The lower right corner is in my bedroom. None of the window bars or grills open. If there is a fire and the door is blocked, it’s bad news for the room occupants.
This is the front room of the shop house where I am living. It is two stories tall. At the other end of this room is a mezzanine room looking down onto this floor. That is for the shopkeeper to keep watch over his stock when the ground floor is set up as a shop or business. I use that mezzanine room as an office.
The point to notice here are the vents over the front doors. Everything in the house is designed to let air circulate and flow through. Electricity, e.g., for fans, is quite expensive now. 25 years ago, when this house was built electricity was still in its infancy so houses were “cooled” by increasing air flow.
Notice this woman on a motorcycle at 6:00 AM. She’s not wearing a helmet but she’s wearing some…what are they?….on her hands. They’re not gloves but Cambodian women will go to great lengths to cover any exposed skin so that it isn’t darkened by the sun.
Just about anything you want to eat is available on the street–without even getting off your moto–and people are queued up to get it.
The night time street stalls for food offer a variety of selections. This one sells roast duck.
A large percentage of the Cambodian population gets supper from the street, partly because it’s cheap and convenient, and partly because it avoids lighting a charcoal fire in a clay pot which is the way most people cook at home. Here this food stall offers grilled fish.
When you’re hankering for steamed snails in the U.S., you probably have to look around a bit before you find a shop that sells them. Not so in Phnom Penh! And at this shop, you don’t even have to get off your motorcycle to buy them!
These monks making their begging rounds in Phnom Penh may be wearing outfits in a style that hasn’t changed for the last 2,500 years but they have their iced coffee and bubble teas!
Cambodians, especially the deaf youth, live a simple lifestyle that is closely linked to nature. Today there was excitement in the morning break when the students discovered two small green mangoes on a tree on our property–unfortunately too far out of reach for even our mango-picker poles.
I love mangoes but the idea of eating a hard, unripe green mango is yechy for me. Cambodians put some sort of salt or spices or something on the green mangoes and think it’s heavenly.
Today King Sihomani attended the annual royal plowing ceremony in Kampong Speu Province. The ceremony, held at the beginning of the rainy season, is to predict the fortunes of various agricultural crops in Cambodia.
First two oxen make three plowing trips across the designated field, attended by royal officials.
Then the oxen were led to seven platters with various foods, to see which they would choose. Today the oxen favored rice, corn, and soybeans indicating to the officials that those crops will be bountiful this year. The other offerings placed before the oxen were sesame, grass, water, and wine.
[Now you know! If you want to invest in Cambodian soybean futures, now is the time!]
[Photos are from the Khmer Times.]