Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

Not a good future for these birds…

Here is a cage with eight roosters in it. It was just on the sidewalk in front of a typical shophouse. The owner would be keeping them for cock fighting. They got into a few battles while I watched, just because there were too many of them in a cage designed for one rooster. Is it illegal? Cockfighting is, but these cages are out in the open everywhere.

Changing times

Years ago this little house with a sloping roof might have been quite the thing: on a major street corner and even has concrete lower walls. Now it’s lost any allure it once had and is a sorry remnant of a former era. It’s surrounded by more modern buildings, it has a huge billboard stanchion right in front of it, and it’s rather decrepit. But it has an air conditioner!

Limted Time Only

Tucked in among high-rises and modern buildings is this old traditional wooden house. Its days are probably numbered. Right now mom and dad are still there and make a little money selling a bit of sand and gravel, but when they are gone–whoosh! The kids will sell the land for another apartment block.

Easy Rider

Cambodia children start riding motorcycles–in their mother’s arms–from the week they are born so they are used to it and comfortable with that mode of transportation. This woman certainly seems casual about her ride.

A long way but not too far….

This is Sihanouk Blvd., a major east-west thoroughfare in Phnom Penh. When I came to Cambodia in 2000, there was only one store or shop on this street that had a closed front like this shop. All the others had iron gates with folding shuttered covers like the little shop on the right in the picture. Now almost every shop is enclosed with real doors and most even have air conditioning. Above this brightly-lit store front, though, you can still see the history of the street–a wooden-walled second floor with swinging wooden shutters, not glass windows. Sihanouk Blvd. has come a long way but it hasn’t escaped its past.

The revival is starting

As we were coming back from the Saturday evening mass tonight, we commented how the crowds are starting to reappear on the waterfront. For more than a year, the area along the river–the night time tourist center of Phnom Penh—was almost deserted because of Covid-19. Now people are out eating and enjoying themselves. This woman has her popcorn stand ready to go.

Multi-tasking

First there was the pharmacy. Then they added the coffee stand. And then, what the heck, let’s sell all kinds of drinks! And unless someone sleeps out in front every night, they set all this up in the morning and put it back in the shop every evening.