Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

Sidewalks in Cambodia are not used for walking, so just find an empty place, bring over your food cart, and you’re in business for the morning breakfast crowd.

This young woman is fulfilling a dream that I have encountered in many young mothers like her–to have a little business, in this case a drinks shop, to contribute their share in supporting the family but being able to be with and care for their children throughout the day in the shop that is the front part of their home.

Two weeks ago, I was visiting a Chinese family celebrating the Lunar New Year and while I was taking their picture, their four little dogs like this one went crazy and three of them bit me. It all happened in 10 to 15 seconds.

The family assured me the dogs had their shots but when I got the papers, they just said the dogs were “registered” and mentioned nothing about being vaccinated. I went to a hospital where I knew they would speak English and the doctor left no doubt that I would need five rabies shots and a tetanus booster. I’ve had three of the five rabies shots so far.

In the hospital I was aware of only the two bites shown in the picture farther up but when I got home I found a third one, higher up on my thigh. You can see the bandage under the bottom of my short pants while I was burning palms for Ash Wednesday.

The whole episode was more an inconvenience than a big problem. And an unnecessary expense–$245–although that is probably much cheaper than the six shots and wound treatment would have cost in the United States.

It won’t do if you’re driving more than 20 MPH and it won’t help much in a driving rain, but this little convertible top might block a little shower or some of the tropical sun.

The BBC this morning said that 73% of the United States was under snow and there were stories of the many electrical outages because of the bitterly cold weather. When so many people are suffering so much, I almost hesitate to post the weather headline here (above). The photo caption warns that some provinces could see temperatures go as low as 61ºF to 64.5ºF.

In this picture, I’m on a motorcycle taxi in the curb lane and you can see how the typical little shop and its workers just take over the sidewalk. They do all their work outside. This man is welding a part for a motorcycle repair.

This is something almost never seen in Cambodia: almost every single vehicle stopped for a red light is behind the crosswalk, the accepted norm in western countries. Normally traffic in Phnom Penh does not halt for a light until the front wheel is intruding into the lane of moving cars, causing them to swerve. Cambodians drivers are like others, though, often creatures of habit and copiers of others, and by some strange circumstance the first one to stop for the light must have stopped behind the crosswalk and the others just followed suit without thinking.

There must be a story behind this mother-and-son(?) duo riding down a main Phnom Penh street. Is that everything they own on that bicycle? Where are they from? Where are they going?