Getting Around Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh may be one of the largest cities in the world with no public mass transit. It's the biggest city I've ever visited where you can't find even a single city bus. Gettng an accurate census in a sprawling, ramshackle place like this isn't easy. Most current estimates put the population here at somewhere just over two million. The population of buses, trains or any other form of surface mass transport is ZERO.


Phnom Penh experimented briefly with buses three or four years ago. The experiment lasted only three months because, I've been told, no one would ride them. The denizens of this city have a more unique form of transport that they seem highly unlikely to stop using - the motodup (augmented by the larger and much more romantic tuk tuk - see second vehicle in the photo below). A motodup is simply a 100-125 cc motorbike (often a version of the Honda cub made by Daelim from Korea) and driver that will put you on the back of his bike and drive you around town for a small fee. The cost varies depending on the distance. As foreigeners, we ALWAYS had to negotiate but we invariably settled near the usual cost of about fifty cents per kilometer.


Many guidebooks tell you that the street corners are full of waiting motodup drivers easily recognizable by their ubiquitous uniform - the baseball cap. It's almost impossible to walk past them without hearing the song of the streets, "Hello Sir, moto?" or the more simplified "Moto?".


Cambodians famously do NOT like to walk. That, supposedly, is the main reason why the bus experiment failed. Motodups will take you from door to door. With a bus, you have to get off at some predetermined stop and walk to your final destination. Motodups are cheap. You can find one any time of day or night. They're very convenient. It's no wonder we see thousands of these guys (NEVER have we seen a woman driver) around the city. Women riders go sidesaddle.


When we started work, we needed to get from our house to our office. We toyed with the idea of buying bicycles but never got around to it. Instead we hit up the motodups on the corner closest to our house. Both of us can pile onto single moto and get to the office in less than ten minutes. Since our Khmer was limited, we drew a simple map of our destination. With a little deciphering, the driver seemed to understand and off we went.


After only two or three days, a strange thing happened. One of our drivers picked us up for the second time - a repeat. When we tried to fumble through the map description and directions, he smiled and waved us off. He remembered where we were going. It was amazing. Get on the bike; no need to give directions; no need to negotiate the fee; just roll and enjoy the scenery. It was like that every day going forward unless we had a driver who'd never carried us before.

I won't go into the hair raising aspect of trusting your life to another driver in some of THE MOST chaotic traffic on earth. Suffice to say that, if you're paying attention at all, it can be very scary. The rules of the road here are minimal and traffic flows based on lack of resistance more than any other factor. It completely common to drive down the wrong side of the street agains traffic as long as you stay closer to the shoulder. Red stoplights merely mean "slow down". Intersections ebb and flow with the cross traffic pushing and nudging until someone can break all the way across. Of course, all of this happens without helmets for the passengers.

Don't eat the bear paw

Yes...the trade in endangered animals. We've all heard the stories about how anything goes (...onto an Asian dinner plate). Just east of Phnom Penh there's a long string of huge restaurants frequented almost exclusively by Khmers (Cambodians) reputed to sell all manner of exotic cuisine - everything from cobra to dog to different parts of endangered deer among other things. The above billboard is just over the river from Phnom Penh right where the restaurants begin. It implies that you go to jail if you serve up anything threatened or endangered. One can only hope the authorities actually enforce whatever regulations might be on the books. As Cambodia, like much of the developing world, is open to the highest bidder, I wouldn't bet on the menu being close to what most Westerners would consider conventional.

Friends Make It Feel Like the Holidays

Staying put seems to be the right tactic if you people to visit....and we always want people to visit. We've been in Phnom Penh for a couple months now and it seems like this city is on the road "to" or "from" someplace or other for a number of our friends. Sherry, pictured above with Tami on the roof of the Foreign Correspondents' Club, was the latest familar face to spend some time with us. We hadn't seen her for almost two years. She was one of the stalwarts who saw us off on our last night in the States back in NYC.


Unlike other visitors - this is actually a first now that I think of it - Sherry came to visit as a result of work, not pleasure. She works for the United Nations and took a weekend out of a very hectic schedule to fly down from Vientienne, Laos. She's no stranger to traveling in the developing world and fell right into the rhythm of seeing the sights in Phnom Penh. We did some of our local favorites (riding in tuk-tuks - above).


You never know what you'll find on the streets of this city. Notice how at-ease Sherry is. I was afraid the rump of that beast might have swung over and crushed me.


One of the nicest things we've been able to enjoy by staying put, is our kitchen for cooking . . . . and our terrace for eating. Every guest has had to endure long brunches or dinners where Tami and I try to get satiated on all the foods from home we miss. This particular morning it was Latin American - desayuno tipico. Homemade tortillas and salsa, too.

One afternoon, a friend of ours who lives here, Bari (far right) arranged a private, sunset boat cruise on the Mekong. Ouch. You can't believe how peaceful and mellow it was out on the river. Phnom Penh can be kah-ray-zeeeee and the boat was an unexpected release. After a couple snail-paced hours, we were all smiling.



The icy beers helped, too.


Even the captain enjoyed himself. (Check out his Britney logbook...)


One morning, we had the bonus treat of two more people joining in from home. Perry and Mike, two friends of one of Tami's girlfriends were passing through and joined for brunch.


In and out. Two days and she was back on a tuk-tuk to the airport. Much fun. It'll be that much more fun to laugh about our little sojourn when we're back home someday. Adios amiga!

The Eric and Margaret Road Show

Two more friends from home just rolled through for a visit...and what a treat it was. As fun as our time out here on the road has been, very little can beat catching up with friends over a long brunch or dinner. Every time someone visits, it feels like a personal envoy from our homeland has set aside time for classified debriefing.

This time was a little different, though . . . . and possibly even a little better. Eric and Maggie didn't merely come out for a vacation and throw in a visit to us. They have put together their own version of a "break from the path" and struck out on longer-term odyssey of their own. Both successful professionals, they took a step off the treadmill and have been on the road since this past summer. They started in Turkey, went back to the States for a full two-week stint at Burning Man, decompressed at Lake Tahoe then made their way to Southeast Asia. They arrived in Phnom Penh just in time to celebrate American Thanksgiving with us.

With their visit, it might be the first time Tami and I can include ourselves on our friends' "visitor-on-the-road" list. One thing we found especially nice is that, in the past few months, E & M have covered a lot of the same ground as Tami and I. It was refreshing to get their hometown impressions of experiences we've shared. It's also been encouraging to see how comfortably they seem to have adapted to life on the road and how inspired they seem to be about the things they've seen.

Tami and I know there's a lot of awesomely fun stuff out here. It reinforces our delight, though, to hear the enthusiasm in Eric's voice when he described having a complete stranger in Vietnam hop on the back of his bicycle as Eric pedaled along with the guy on the back while neither could understand the other...but it was all just fine.

Every time we see friends from home Tami and I know we've got a lot to look forward to on our return. We miss everyone a lot. Reconnecting with some of you will have the added laughs of reminiscing over some of the stuff we saw together along the way.

What can you get for your dollar today?

A lot less than you could back in August. That dollar you had THREE MONTHS AGO is now worth 91.4 cents. Our 12 Trillion dollar economy is now less than 11 Trillion. If your investments haven't appreciated 8.6% in the past ninety or so days, you're down.

The above chart compares the value of the US Dollar to a basket of currencies from other nations. A month ago, Federal Reserve Bank chair Ben Bernanke replied to questions about the falling buck by mumbling that within the US, the dollar is still a dollar. That leaves out those things Americans buy from abroad....starting with OIL. You can go down the list from there. We are a deficit nation. We buy more from abroad than we sell. Dollar goes down, our prices go up.

Got Gold?

Some Links To Our Fellows Work

As I said below, we've been busy. Here's some examples of what we've been doing. Just click the link and you can get to a blog for Kiva Fellows.

http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2007/11/16/do-what-you-know/

You can see a compendium of my journal entries for Kiva/Maxima if you click on the link over to the right of this page called "Kiva Fellows Posts"

What Have We Been Up To?

Man . . . it's been a busy last few weeks. Since early October we've been working as Fellows with a microfinance institutution (MFI) here in Phnom Penh. Micro-finance has been around in various forms for over a hundred years but most people date its crossover into wider familiarity with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in the 1970's. The founder, a man named Muhammad Yunus, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. (It's a fascinating story if you click on those links.)

As I understand it, the idea of microfinance is to loan money to people who otherwise have no access to credit either:

1) ... in sums large enough to do anything more than pay for day-to-day living expenses or...

2) ... at interest rates low enough to allow them to pay it back without incurring further debt.

Perhaps the most common question asked and certainly the first one I asked was, "If the lendees can pay back the loans with interest, why don't they just save the money themselves and save the interest cost?" I've been told by several loan recipients that the schedule of making loan payments enforces a discipline that they would otherwise find elusive. These people do not put money in the bank. They are too poor (most earn around US $2.00 a day, give or take) , bank branches are few and far between and Cambodia has a recent history of bank failure and total loss of funds due to civil war and corrupt mismanagement. So, the money of the people our MFI works with stays in their homes. And when the money is there, they tell is there is always some need that causes them to spend it - whether it's a child that needs clothes or an extended family member that has an emergency. The fact that a loan officer visits them once a month gives them the excuse to say, "No, I can't spend it."

Loan officer disburses a loan (US Dollars are the default currency in Cambodia)

When they do get the loan, they suddenly have open to them choices they never had before. For example, we interview many people who make their livings by weaving cloth on hand and foot operated looms. For generations many of these people had only one avenue of managing their cost and income. They would get thread from local middlemen who also serve as the sole buyers of finished cloth. The typical arrangement our clients describe is a middleman extending 0a weaver credit of enough thread to make three finished pieces of cloth with the middleman taking two and the weaver taking the profit (with a price set by the middleman!) for the third. Apparently they got by but there was little or no movement up any economic ladder. Now, a weaver can get a loan for a few hundred dollars, travel the ten to thirty kilometers into Phnom Penh to one of the large markets and buy the supplies themselves for a lower cost. When they have completed enough finished pieces, they can take them into the city and sell them for a higher cost. The power of capital!

Weaver on the Mekong island of Koh Dach

Other business fare better, as well. Many farmers formerly could only afford a limited amount of seed, fertilizer, pesticide, etc. because they had a long period of waiting before they harvested and sold the produce. Now, they can take out a loan at a reasonable interest rate, buy larger amounts of materials and harvest and sell more at the end of a growing cycle. Many MFI's even offer a special loan product for farmers that allow them to make small payments early in the cycle when they have no cash flow saving the larger payments for the end of the growing/harvesting cycle. Whatever the situation, my experience in five weeks of interviewing clients is that they are very happy to have access to the funds.

So what's the role of Tami and I in all this? We applied to work with this organization from San Francisco called KIVA. They worked out a system set up on the Web to connect individual lenders (NOT donors) with people in need in the developing world. If you go to their website they explain it in detail. The essence of it goes like this, someone in Seattle goes to the Kiva site. There they see profiles of businesses/people in need of funding. Seattle (after they set up an account) clicks on a business they want to loan to and the funds go to an MFI who works with Kiva in the target country. At some point in the payback period, someone from KIVA or the MFI interviews the loan recipient to assess the impact of the loan. That's where Tami and I come in.
Tami on one of our morning commutes - a ferry across the Mekong River

We work as Fellows for Kiva. We get the distinct pleasure of riding with our MFI's (MAXIMA) loan officers to interview then blog about the clients - and you might not believe what a great time this is. We're doing many of the things we left home to do but, because we're working with a local organization and with a Cambodian who can interpret, we are allowed much deeper into the local culture than we've been ANY time on this trip. We're seeing a whole spectrum of the entrepreneurial economy. Because, at this economic level business and family are essentially inseparable, we get to see lots of family life we'd never see as well. Working with MAXIMA, we also experience working with a professional organization and MAXIMA is first-rate. Even though we're only scruffy volunteers, their staff has welcomed us in and supported us as if we were managing partners.

So, we have about another month of our term with KIVA/MAXIMA as Fellows. We'll see what comes after that but for now we're enjoying this very much.

Well...we were just graced with another care package from home. This time, it came in the form of our globe-trotting friend from Manhattan, Manhattan. He's become so synonymous with his home city that his friends haven't come up with a better nick-name for him. Thinking about it, part of the reason his handle has stuck so well is that, more than most anyone I've ever known, Rich (real name) makes the effort to put in an appearance where and whenever he sees the opportunity to spend some quality time with friends. Exhibit A below...

Hell on Wheels (note mermaid surfing on the crocodile behind)

I don't think he's missed a Burning Man in nine years. He comes out to San Francisco or LA for fundraisers and parties. And now, following in the footsteps of Captain Ken, Manhattan has become our only other friend to make the super-hero list of people from home who've visited us twice. Man gets around...!

I've lobbied for a while now that Manhattan, while worn with unredoubtable aplomb, might be a less accurate moniker than he deserves. The more I get to know Rich, the more I see all these colorful and unique aspects of his personality incipient with naming possibilities. Those of you who know him might well agree. Consider this an opportunity to submit suggestions. :)

Right at home...

Rich has spent a surprisingly huge portion of his life on the beach. I learned more about that over the past few days. The man's second home is Jamaica and he knows his way around the sea, sand, thatched bungalows and cold beers as well as anyone I've ever met. He was/is very good company.

No, "Playa Shark" has been retired. Try again.

Our man blew into town from Thailand, checked out a few sites here in Cambodia and swept back out for NYC in time to celebrate Halloween. (At least we think he made it, we still haven't heard from him.) For a guy who'd I'd consider to be mellow, he sure tired Tami and I out. Seems like that's how it happened last time we saw him back in Amsterdam.

We'll miss ya Rich/Manhattan/Traveller/Excess/????

Very Cool Boat Ride

Our first week of "work" here in Cambodia turned out to finish with a three-day national holiday. Our offices were closed so Tami and I took the opportunity to return to the ruins of Angkor in the northwest of the country. We repeated the route we took back in January taking a bus from Phnom Penh to Battambang. From there, we took a boat down a river that feeds into the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's largest lake. The ride takes anywhere from six to over ten hours but we were excited to do it again. I think we both consider it one of the high points of our entire time on the road.

Over the course of the ride you see people living next to and on the water in ways that seem straight out of some whimsical fiction. The children along the way (and there are hundreds) scream "hello" and wave like parade queens and marshalls. I think the boat passing is the high point of any day. On our first trip we saw floating pig pens tethered behind floating houses; huge, hand-built bamboo fishing contraptions that raised and lowered a net suspended from a long boom; floating stores/barbers/other businesses; trees hacked to just above the water line for firewood for cooking....it was surreal. We left Battambang just after dawn. The Khmers (Cambodians- almost all of whom use the boat as transport between watery villages) ride down below in the seated area. The tourists all ride up on top to enjoy the view.

About an hour and a half into the trip, this guy came through to check our tickets. So, what would he have done if we didn't have one? LOL

Often, the captain threaded a path through flooded scrub growth. We saw lots of channels and how he knew which to take was a mystery. At one point, we had to share the lane with this boat of Muslims. Apparently there are many living and fishing in the area. They were all smiles.
Sometimes we had to duck the overhanging branches. My shoes almost got swept overboard.
We realized after the first good strafing that the branches were home to innumerable red ants. For a long time everyone alternated between ducking branches, sweeping ants off the deck and brushing frantically at their clothes. No more relaxing sunbathing. It was hilarious.
We were happy we survived that part.
At villages where a passenger was getting off or on, a canoe would row out to meet our boat. It was like an aqua version of a Greyhound bus coming to a small town. Family members and friends seemed really happy to see one another.
If you worked as hard as this dude all your life, you might look this tough.
Life on the water seemed to be just as beneficial to some of the ladies. Is that a mermaid tail she's sitting on?
Even out here TV has its irresistible appeal. What the heck they can receive, though, I have no idea. It's REMOTE.
Everyone has a boat. All the boats have batteries. As a matter of fact, batteries are what power those TV's or any electric lights. A common business seems to be a battery recharging station. Got generator?

A little off the top?
This is a super-sweet ride. If you're ever in the area, check it out. Here are more photos from both our trips: http://destinationasia.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album33

Stasis

Checking in from Cambodia where the rainy season is beginning and the temps have finally fallen into the sub-molten range. It's been almost ten months since Tami and I first came to this region. Southeast Asia has been fun and interesting. We've spent time in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and China (even made it over the border into pre-uprising Burma for one day).

Two days ago, we crossed back into Cambodia. This time, we're going to stay put for awhile. A couple of months back we started searching for volunteer positions and we've just been placed in Phnom Penh. We're excited because we really enjoyed Cambodia our first trip through back in January. The Khmer people are super-friendly and charming, especially the kids.


The country's just civilized enough that you can be comfortable, but twisted enough that you can dip into plenty of experiences that you'll remember for a long time. (See the delicious fried crickets and tarantulas below.)


It's got nice coast and beaches.

It's got ancient ruins that are simply superlative. I've never seen any more inspiring on this planet.




If all goes as planned, we'll be in Phnom Penh for the next three months. We're excited. We'll be volunteering/working for an organization (Kiva) that makes micro-loans to very small business people. I have a feeling we're going to learn a lot.

Something about this particular stop feels different - like we've reached the farthest extreme of our orbit. As with all other good things, our time on the road feels like it might be coming to an end. Plans can always change but, after Phnom Penh, we expect to turn our sites slowly toward home. From Cambodia we plan to go back to India for a few months and, barring any irresistible temptations . . . . we should be back in the States by early summer.

It isn't all bad

Yeah, I can whine about Bangkok. I watched this today, though. Beautiful.


Under this huge, traditional swing, a woman fed the pigeons.


She gave me a warm smile when I walked up.


Who's flying?


The Thai's do this prayer-like salute called a 'wai'. She held the bread between her hands and wai'ed before every broadcast.


Happy birds and a happy bird feeder.