Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

Not appreciated….

This is a common sight in Phnom Penh—roosters kept in cages at people’s homes and bred for cockfighting. Illegal, of course, but that means nothing in Cambodia. Roosters are a common sight. Even worse, they are a common sound. Where I live, some rooster caged like these starts crowing at 4:00 AM. I have to keep my windows shut and I use a white-noise machine to block the noise.

Cambodian Hotspot

In the past three weeks, Cambodia has recorded almost triple the number of Covid infections it experienced in the first thirteen months of the pandemic. The surge is generally seen as resulting from a private plane coming in, a group with their own hookers who bribed their way out of quarantine and started running around. Nearly half the provinces in the country now have infections. The picture above is of one household where an infected person lives, what the government calls a hotspot. The authorities put up a tent and establish a police guard to try and control the infection from spreading.

New Choice for a Ride

One of the nice things about Phnom Penh is the ease of transportation. Owning a car is a real drawback. Most cars are kept in the living rooms of the owners’ houses–and there’s no place to park them on the street when you’re out and about. Motorcycles are the most common form of transportation and now there’s a new choice: these yellow 902 electric motos that can be rented from the Circle K convenience stores.

Marking the eras….

Here is another street corner that reflects some of the architectural history of Phnom Penh. On the corner are two one-story wooden houses that probably date back to the early 1900s. Then to the right of them is a green three-story concrete building that start replacing the wood buildings in the 1940s and 1950s. And finally, in the background, is a multi-story modern building going up, a product of the building craze that started around 2000.

Two Jobs Are Better Than One

This is a scenario that is not uncommon in Cambodia: a seamstress who sets up a food and drink service in front of her tailor shop to serve the morning rush-hour crowd going past her on a major street. The International Labor Organization estimates that 84% of Cambodia’s economy is this informal work, although in this case the woman’s tailor shop might actually be registered with the government although that is certainly not a given.

A jump in the wrong direction….

Cambodia seemed to be blessed. It took a year to reach about 350 COVID-19 infections in the kingdom–and no deaths. Then on 20 February four Cambodians bribed guards and sneaked away from quarantine and started a surge of infections. In just five or six days 200 new infections were discovered and the numbers keep increasing.

Because of that all schools in Phnom Penh and Kandal Province have been closed and the prime minister has asked people not to come to the capital city.