Crossing the Road

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I’ve just spent the week in Phnom Penh, a city I love. It’s small and easy to get around, the restaurants have great food and beautiful décor, great atmosphere - far superior to Bangkok’s restaurants - the wine doesn’t have a tax of 400% like in Bangers, the Cambodian people I’ve met are friendly, the motodops (motor-taxi drivers) charge us foreigners double what they would a Cambodian with a smile and there’s a sense of justice about it, and the roads are scenes of hilarious chaos. The rules for driving in Cambodia can be summarised as follows: 1) stopping must be avoided at all costs - for eg., if you are turning from the far side of the road, you slowly make your way onto the opposite side of road, facing oncoming traffic and then turn from the near side side of the road, rather than actually stop and wait for a break in the traffic from the right side of the road(I told one of my motodops that in Australia we only drive on one side of the road, which he was actually surprised about!); 2) who gets right of way depends on the value of their car and also their personal status - so a great big shiny new 4WD takes precedence over most vehicles, and a bicycle is lowest of the low, but a big new motorbike ridden by a young men takes precedence over an older car, because this young man is doubtless the son of a military officer or a minister of parliament; and 3) if there are any actual laws regarding driving, they are made to be ignored (or if a police officer wants to enforce one of them, then you just pay him off).

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