Cambodia

I was in Kratie long ago, stopping there to spend the night, on my way to Laos. The above sign caught my attention as it stands out prominently in the town’s main street. I learned it was put up by the local commune office in Kratie town to call the whole community’s attention and action to clean their surroundings, especially the river.

The main illustration in the signboard shows people cleaning up. On the upper right side  box of the signboard, it shows a person throwing a (plastic) bagful of garbage into the river. Underneath that is another person throwing plastic from the window of a moving bus. Such is the practice here and the government, beginning at the lower level, is making efforts to curb this behaviour and practice nationwide.

Clean environment. Good health. Family has happiness.

Together we clean our village.

Kratie town has a small, charming centre with a very pleasant riverside scenery. Most tourists, especially backpackers, arrive here after a gruelling 8-9hours of bus ride, as the last leg of their Cambodia tour and see the Irrawaddy dolphins, or the Mekong River dolphins,  before crossing the border to Laos the following day.  Behind the sign is the mighty Mekong River that provides a stunning view of the sunset. No wonder this town wanted to protect its beautiful river.

Night shots have frustrated me for some time now  especially that I’m only using a point-and-shoot digicam. My mistake always lie on my use and/or improper use of flash. The ISO setting doesn’t really do much to improve my shots either. They tend to be grainy and artificial looking. Bu then, one night last week, I got lucky. 

I was snapping like crazy while we drove long Sisowath Quay and out of the dozen photos, this one, taken just before we passed in front of the Royal Palace, isn’t really bad.I love how this picture turned out. What do you think?

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Moving to a new location? No problem. Call Pu, the remorque driver! A remorque (photo above) is a French word meaning “to tow”. In Cambodia, a remorque is a local motorcycle transport with something resembling a trailer behind it. 

For local transport there is the ‘remorque’ : a motorcycle with a big trailer behind. Remorque is French for to tow. This type of vehicle must be very Cambodian, there is definitely no Wiki page available on this. What’s more, if the draft version of the traffic law is accepted the remorque will probably cease to exist. The towed trailer is a bit deep and loose planks are laid from side to side which are meant as the seats. Often these are over loaded, 20-30 passengers is no problem. A major safety issue is that the trailer can easily cause the motorcycle front wheel to make a wheelie and thus steeringless. Lucky thing is that these motorcycles can’t drive fast.  (Source)

In the above photo, the seats were taken off to accommodate the cargo. Although the remorques are banned in the city proper, they are everywhere outside of Phnom Penh, carrying passengers and their produce from the market to the villages. They are the local version of movers.

More photos at That’s My World.

More sky photos at Skywatch Friday. 

Four years ago, I was assigned in Kep for a big rural ICT project. Kep was a sleepy coastal town in the southernmost part of Cambodia. I lived there for 6months and during weekdays, I was busy with work, traveling from village to village spread across three communes in the district of Damnak Chang’eur. Weekends, however, was a different story. With no other means of entertainment, my husband and I took this opportunity to visit nearby communes and explore places that were rarely visited and were off-the-beaten track.

We found the sign (above) on the main road. On the right is a logo of UNDP Seila Project and, on the left, the Ministry of Tourism’s. We were convinced when we saw the logos and followed the trail. Some 45 minutes later, we were still nowhere near Phnom Chhngok cave. It was nearing noon, and hot and humid, and my butt was getting sore from the bumpy motorcycle ride. But we were glad we persisted in going. We stopped by to ask for directions with my sparse spoken-Khmer skills, had a chitchat for a bit, and enjoyed fresh coconut juice bought from a local roadside stall. The sight was a marvelous yellow and verdant green carpet of rice-field as far as our eyes could see. The coconut and palm trees, on the other hand, jutted out into the sky like skyscrapers.  When we finally arrived at the place…  we saw a limestone cave; small, but a beautiful one nonetheless. Inside it was chilly and there were stalactites and stalagmites here and there. But the main attraction there was the shrine (or remnants of what was once a shrine) inside the cave believed to be pre-Angkorian, around 1,500 years old. Some pictures on the way there can be found here at CambodiaMaps.

For more signs around the world, check out the main site by clicking the logo below.