Phnom Penh

As I told you in the last post I lost as good as all of my Phnom Penh (more silent 'h's! MORE!) pictures. Fortunately I have a few that are not incredibly great, but they might give you a small impression. Jump on this Tuc-tuc for a ride around the city! (for those of you who don't know what a tuc-tuc is, it's a small wagon attached to a motorcycle and its basically the substitution of a cab in Cambodia. In the cities you cannot walk 5 meters without some guy running to you "Lady, tuc-tuc? Tuc-tuc, Lady? You want Tuc-tuc?" and as you are saying no to this man who is impossible to get rid of, the next one is already running towards you. Neverthelesss it is a very cheap way of getting around. For 2 US dollars (and 10 minutes of barigain) you can go across town and see all the small streets). So much for the parenthesis, that is longer than the rest of the post.

Traffic in Cambodia. Coming from Germany this is one of the craziest and most outstanding experiences I have had. People mostly drive motorcicles in this country (appart form a few (thousand) tuc-tucs (btw. "Tuc-tuc, Lady?? Tuc-tuc?") and some suicidal cars). The traffic here is best compared to Sodom and Gomorra. Really. It goes from whole families (and this means the father (driving), the mother (holding one of the kids) and one to two kids (often completely naked and usually standing on the seat between their mother and their father)) on one motorcyle and noone apart from the driver wearing a helmet (if you are not driving then you cannot be hurt, apparently), to carrying the most incredible things (that I could not carry with four friends by foot) on one motorcycle and to DRIVING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. And not just in some small streets. ON THE HIGHWAY (well, highway means around 50 km/h, but still). How do they still live!?   The motorcycles always passed 1cm from our tuc-tuc ("Tuc-tuc, Lady?") and the lanes were usually completely ignored. Never, NEVER complain about your city for doing the driver licence again! NEVER!  

Ok, now that I cooled down I show you soe pictures of the central marked. It is a very beautiful building where they have everything (mostly copies). As usual you have to bargain because the initial price is impertinently high! Here is the entrance tho the market building:

The guy in the frame is the late king of cambodia. He died last month so there wer pictures of him all over the country. 

This is the mall from the inside. It was like a big hall with four hallways like a cross. I hope you get the picture.

This is a picture of a very cool guy (ha-ha). In case you cannot recognize it he is sawing some huge block of ice. I don't know how that can be a lucrative business at 30 ºC in the shadow, but apparently the ice does not melt that quickly.

And to finish this short impression a picture that caught my attention. In a country in which half of the population has to sit on the floor of the streets these three dogs get a their own chair (and apparently they stay seated...). Never forget your good manners!