Category: Daily Life in Cambodia

I’m in Kampot this afternoon for a meeting at DDP in the morning.  When I was walking back to the guesthouse this evening, I saw a burger joint with this sign.

I don’t think so….

You want oranges?  We got oranges….

These oranges are from Battambang Province in northern Cambodia.  That province is famous throughout Cambodia for its oranges (which are actually green and do not turn orange).

 

Pomelos are for sale on the street now, a sign of the changing seasons when the trees, weather, etc., all remain the same.  Pomelos, with color and texture and appearance of a grapefruit–but with a much better taste, IMHO, are one of my favorite fruits.

“Well, how else can I get my refrigerator home?  You want me to walk down the street with it?”

 

 

So? Don’t you have a spare on YOUR car?

A truck full of sod is not a really unusual sight in many countries, but it is a bit of an oddity in Phnom Penh.  There is very little grass in the cities and grass is not appreciated in itself.  The last house where I lived, I watched with interest from my third-floor window as the family who lived on the large lot next door would go out with big knives and meat cleavers and assiduously scrape away any grass that dared to grow up.  They wanted the bare mud!  I do see more grass appearing in various places now, but it is rare enough that it is noticed.

Cambodia has realized a new transportation mode in the last year and a half or so.  Phnom Penh is really weak on public transportation and so getting around has generally depended on motorcycle taxis (motordupes) or tuk-tuks.  But now a new vehicle has appeared, what is called an autorickshaw in India where I first used them.  It is a small three-wheeled vehicle mostly enclosed.  What has made them so attractive since their introduction has been the hailing system–a smartphone app that usually brings a PassApp within two minutes–and their cheap prices.  They are cheaper even than a motorcycle taxi and what is so great, the fare is calculated on the smartphone so that you know exactly what you need to pay and there is no need to haggle with the driver.

That’s the good part.  Generally I have found the drivers exceptionally polite and efficient, but last Friday when I was returning home, I engaged a driver who seems to be a real cheat and who took me way out of the way.  What is so weird is that the journey is recorded on a map which is sent to the telephone of the customer so I can easily show how he cheated me.

I left Point A and should have traveled east before turning south to the Maryknoll office. Instead the driver turned north, clearly shown on the map, and added approximately 25% to the fare.  I had ridden the same route three times previously in a two-day period so I knew what the fare should be.

I contacted the PassApp company and they promised to deal with the driver, implicated by the receipt with map that his phone sent to me!

This is a somewhat new scenario in Phnom Penh.  Most people have never seen a moving train in Cambodia.  I have been here eighteen years and this is the third time I have seen a train.  The tracks from 80 years ago were not maintained and didn’t even reach their destinations.  Up until this year, there was one train a day in each direction to Sihanoukville, the port in the south.  The 135 miles took 12 hours.

Now there is a push to get the tracks going all the way to Thailand and a month ago, a commuter train was set up to run from the airport every thirty minutes.  That is the train above.

They haven’t quite got the hang of it yet.  The gates are manually operated and note that the operator is raising the gate as soon as the engine arrives, I guess figuring they don’t need the gate down because no one can drive through the train?