Phnom Penh - City of manic drivers

I’m in Phnom Penh again for the 3 month-staff-meeting of the whole ASIA Urbs Staff. I have learned so many things about Cambodians during these two days, and the most important of all, never trust a moto driver in Phnom Penh. Drivers in Phnom Penh do not follow the general traffic flow, they just drive wherever they want to go and on whichever side of the road is most suitable to get them to their destination (see picture, the arrows describe the direction in which each driver is heading). Generally during rush hour everyone drives in a straight line as not to endanger their neighbors, it’s like a huge peloton of motos and cars and it can be very peaceful, until one of the drivers decides to stop or to turn to the right or the left. In that instant the peloton turns to a honking mob of moto drivers until everybody is back in place and can go on.

Another peculiarity about Cambodians is their brilliancy to transport basically everything on a moto or on the top of a truck. You see whole families of 5 on motos, fridges, TVs, glass doors, pigs or calves in cages, millions of pots and pans, empty water bottles etc. Trucks are usually loaded with goods up to a certain height and passengers on top of it all. This is especially tricky because the power cables are not as high as in Germany and once in a while someone will get electrocuted.

Riding in the back of a truck like Bolen and me did on Sunday on our way to Phnom Penh is not nearly as exciting as it seems to us buckle-up-Westerners except for the brutal heat that builds up over lunch time and basically kills you if the people you ride with don’t show mercy and let you sit with them in the front – 7 people on five seats. But I was lucky and even got to ride in the front seat, listened to my Khmers giggling and watched the Mekong region unfold before my eyes. It was spectacular.

The long lunch break gave me the time to spend a lot of money on "original copy" DVDs at the russian market getting a "good price" for all of them. H&M, Ralph Lauren as well as GAP produce some of their clothing in Cambodia and I bought some t-shirts that "fell off the truck" for a price that makes you wonder how high the salary of a RL t-shirt-making person really is.