Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

This is where you get your shrimps–all sizes–and other bite-size shellfish.

Coming from a German background and a family where Mom baked cakes, cookies, or pies every week, for me the cakes in Cambodia are a real disappointment. They are created for visual effect rather than good eating. Who needs play money, huge candles, and two Spidermen on a cake–and especially when the icing is like whipped lard?

A night time food stall–with an arriving customer!

There are all sorts of mangoes just like there are many types of apples. I can’t tell them apart but these lower mangoes are distinctive because of their size. Look at the difference between the upper and lower ones!

If you like mangoes–my favorite fruit!–it’s a great time to be alive. We are at the peak of the mango season and they are everywhere. Mango trees appear on almost every household lot and right now many, many people have many, many mangoes. People are giving them away and dealers like this one above are selling a kilogram (2.2 lbs.) for 75¢. Love it!

I haven’t seen a Tesla on the road here but saw this one in a dealer’s showroom recently.

This afternoon I was riding my bike home from a grocery run with a six-pack of Coke Light in the bike basket. I hit a bump in the street–not an uncommon experience in Phnom Penh–and one of the cans exploded, ripping open the whole side! Quite a surprise!

I’ve been trying to get this picture for months. This is a street vendor selling meat on the road to the school where I have mass on Monday mornings. Those are slabs of meat draped over the back of the pickup truck. No need to bother with a table or even something under the meat. Heck, the buyer is going to cook it, isn’t she?

Usually my tuk-tuk driver is going too fast or there is traffic blocking the view but today I finally got my chance to take the photo. This is 6:00 AM in the morning. At 6:00 PM in the evening this will be your hamburger. Life in Phnom Penh….

[The comments are turned on for this, if anyone is so inclined.]