Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
Maybe some cities are worse for overhead line congestion but I’ve never seen anywhere that compares with Phnom Penh. Such thick bundles of wires and telephone and electric and cable lines crisscross the streets that they often completely obscure the traffic signals.
This year, because Khmer New Year fell in mid April when COVID-19 was becoming established in Cambodia, the days off for the holiday were postponed until this week, August 17-21. All the formal celebrations at the palace and by the government went ahead in April, without public participation, but everyone was told to go ahead and work those days and they would receive five days off now, instead of the three days off then. Now we are in the middle of the nine days off (counting the weekends). This is a photo of a family waiting to head to the provinces for the holidays. Everyone is wondering what this is going to mean for COVID-19 with millions of people traveling back and forth across the country.
A recent article in The Phnom Penh Post spoke of a plan to beautify Phnom Penh with avenues with sidewalks and trees. That is going to be a challenge.
Most of the sidewalks in Phnom Penh don’t exist or are barely visible because of all the parking and other activity taking place on them.
Even on those rare urban streets that still have trees (like the three above) they and the sidewalks have been taken over so that the woman–and all other pedestrians–must walk in the street.
Cambodia—and most of central and east Asia–are not coffee-drinking lands. Tea is the traditional drink. But in recent years Western influence has created a coffee-drinking frenzy in Cambodia. Click here to learn about the early days of the introduction of coffee.
As part of the government’s minimalist approach to dealing with COVID-19, karaoke house, known here at KTVs, have been shut down. Last week, though, they were offered a reprieve—they can reopen as restaurants.
.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fuel prices advertised at a gas/petrol station before. They have LPG and probably diesel, but still that allows for four grades of regular fuel.
One of the advantages of a motorcycle culture combined with a mom-and-pop shop culture is that when your vehicle breaks down on the way to work, you don’t pull off and wait for it to be towed. You just push it a couple hundred yards to the next little moto shop and they’ll fix it while you sit and play with your phone.
Right across from the side entrance to St. Joseph Church is this recycling center. Today a girl on a bicycle is bringing a bag of aluminum cans and she will get 25¢ or 50¢ after the lady weighs cans on the green scale. In this culture turning in a load of cans is not an environmentally motivated recycling initiative but rather money for a family.
Is this what’s called a “working lunch”?
