Getting around: Koh Kong

Travelling in and around Koh Kong township: better off with a (speed) boat

Chasing Cars Cambodian Style, 24 January 2008

Updates on last weeks Chasing Cars.

• Trabant Trek Beach Party, tomorrow in Sihanoukville, on the beach.

• 'Crackdown Creates License Plate Demand'.

  A lesson to us all: if the police start enforcing anything, it automatically leads to a reaction. Despite it being illegal to drive around (either with motorbike and / or car) without license plates, motorbikes are now being checked on, not cars. Two hundred motorcycles had been confiscated leading to

  'more than 1,300 motorcycle owners applying for plates'.

  Phnom Penh's Municipal Police Chief:

  'Our activities are to strengthen traffic laws and prevent criminal acts'.

  Oddly enough it seems the police are just an act of the criminal play: to get confiscated motorcycles back from the police requires a $20 bribe, the Cambodian Daily (January 17, 2007) alleges. Police of course deny this. And the nation's Traffic Safety NGO, Handicap International? A spokesperson prefers

  'if police focused their efforts on cracking down on individuals without driving licenses rather than those without plates. ... If they [offenders] apply for license plate, it doesn't mean that they can drive well. License plates are not really applicable to road safety'.

  Oddly enough, most would say the same of drivers licenses! How about applying the compulsory helmet rule? Or picking up dangerous drivers. Or ....

New news:

• Dancing roads? Wrong, but if you drive some of the nation's roads (in this case Poipet - Siem Reap) you'll be the one doing the dancing:

  'It's named the Dancing Road for the way that people jitterbug around their cars while hurtling at top speed over potholes large enough to hide an entire cow [or a car is Crossing Cambodia's experience]. ... It takes roughly six hours to negotiate 150 kilometers, from the border to the next biggest city, Siem Reap. But the potholes, craters, dirt moguls and ATV-style jumps (really, our bus got at least two feet of air over some of these) are hardly the biggest obstacle. Every kilometer or two, the road just ends. ...

  It's part terrifying, part incredibly fun'.

  Admittedly these types of 'road' may well be the highlight of your stay. Be aware though, progress is just around the corner and in a few years ....

• Khmer 440 forum again: areshole[?] khmer drivers and respondents slagging off the forum thread author. Author laments:

  'Why not put stop signs on the minor roads and at least attempt to slow the traffic?'

  One reaction:

  'Until there is any proper law enforcement here, it will always be the same as there is no incentive to make people change their habits'.

  Thread peters out after this:

  'I vote to use Mark [the author] as the speed hump, now that will slow-em down.
  Or maybe he should take his riotous self out to do the policing himself, HE HAS HIGH OPINIONS OF HIMSELF ABOUT MOST THINGS, block the road off with your tico-dinky [Tico being a Daihatsu Tico] mate, show em whose boss for christ sake and stop the sob stories.
  WELCOME TO CAMBO'.

  Welcome to the world of Cambodian forums for foreigners!
  

• Investment in infrastructure: a bridge over the Tonle Sap might be built; 40 million dollars for road maintenance. All financially well off well-wishers, thank you!
  

• Today's Cambodian Daily (January 24) in it's business section has a number of transportation relevant articles. The first of these reports on the impending changes to the nation's railways or better said the hopes and aspirations. Contracts have been signed to rebuild all existing lines in Cambodia. That's 600 km. To be completed in 2010, including a connection to Thailand via Poipet. Speeds would increase from 30 to 50 km/hr. Australian freight company Toll Holdings is currently negotiating a 30-yr concession agreement to

  'provide and operate new engines and rail cars on the improved rail lines'.

  They do need the improvement. An ADB consultant adds:

  'There's a derailment almost every day. The infrastructure is in really dangerous shape'.

  A proposed line to Vietnam remains in the pipeline.

• Furthermore in the Cambodian Daily of 24 January 2008: on the riverfront the police are enforcing a rule to keep pavements free from obstacles, mostly haphazardly parked motorcycles and restaurant tables. But as this is Cambodia there are some problems with the enforcement:

  'One restaurant manager complained that a well-known Khmer eatery on the quay allows their customers' SUVs to block all but a half meter of the sidewalk.'

  Phnom Penh municipal police chief replied:

  'Land Cruisers may just park for a short time, not forever.'

  Well, that's a relief.

  'One street vendor, who sells skewered meat on the west side of Sisowath Quay, said police confiscated her food cart for a week [!] and demanded $20 for its return. Eventually she paid $5 and was told that next time police would take it for good, she said.'

  This enforcement was of course all according to last years traffic law which naturally makes no distinction between the rich and poor.

• And then in the non-business news of the Cambodian Daily of Jan. 24: a report on all the youngsters taking over the job of traffic police. The article was a bit unclear, are more (traffic controlling youngsters) on the way, different ones coming in? Apparently there are students who work for the Red Cross which has vowed to continue the programme for

  'as long as the funds last'.

  They can't be so long then! Then there are scouts who are also students (getting paid twice?), who apparently stopped back in October (they had to go to school) but are going to be on the streets some time soon. Effectiveness of all these traffic wardens? According to a traffic police officer:

  'People seem to obey traffic lights more when the young volunteers [paid] are at the street corners.'

  Wonder what would happen if the traffic police did the same rather than dozing off under a tree? A girl finally scout adds:

  'They [the traffic offenders] said that I was too young to advise them'.

• Finally for those pedestrian readers, please look out! Your sandals may just well contain a picture of Angkor Wat if you bought them in Vietnam. A mind-boggling story ...
  

Chasing Cars, Cambodian Style, January 17, 2008

• Appearing for the first time on Cambodian roads: the Trabant. Two of them made the charity drive[!] of just six months from Europe to Cambodia, bravo! They just broke down 320 times! Wonder if the Trabant will catch on as easily as the latest Lexus models?

• So you hear a siren and you are not fast enough to pull over? The official's goons will give you a lesson! Cambodian newspaper Koh Santepheap gets in the story. Here is the link provided by KI Media, complete with pictures of the beating! Just 23 comments on this article ...

• Accidents happen on a daily basis in Cambodia, as everywhere in the world. Now why would a story of a drunken South African crashing in Cambodia be so worthy of both a newsarticle[by DPA] as well as 2 pages on the khmer 440 forum?

• The same forum also goes into depth on what is the real Cambodian road menace: the

  'helmetless [foreign, CC presumes] “dirt Bike King”'.

  The forum does go someway at trying to implore foreigners in Cambodia not to be fooled by the local customs but to use what they learnt back home concerning safety issues.

• The most recent issue of Asialife highlights (=free publicity) Infinity's Insurance Road Safety Initiative:

  'As any Phnom Penh resident or visitor can attest, the city's roads are nothing short of Chaotic, with seemingly little awareness of road safety. ... Only 3 percent of motorbike accident victims were wearing a helmet'.

  Infinity's initiative? They give away helmets via a radio station and

  'do not insure people who don't wear helmets'.

  How the former is done in practice is not clarified, their website does not mention it. Possibly somewhere in the small print it says if you are in a motorcycle accident, break your head with no helmet, you get no pay out [= not being insured].

• Not often does Crossing Cambodia come across info for 'real' cyclists, but the Tales of Asia blog has an entry on 'Bicycle Safety'. Does the entry highlight your position at the lower end of the traffic chain? No, it's about handbags being stolen. What does the police do? They actually do something, they warn the owners to put locks on the baskets!

• More cycling news: the Cambodian Cycling Club is '

  promoting bicycle racing as a sport'.

  But mostly they guide foreign tourists.

• So besides resting under a tree or handing out leaflets to bicycle rent shops what are police up to? Khmernews mentions that they now all of a sudden have a drive to crack down on motorcycles with no driving plates.

  'More than 100 modern motorcycles with no plate number were detained, and checked by all seven district police, police said on 12 Jan 2008. The event followed some teenagers with no plate number motorbikes committed robberies around a few times in Phnom Penh city in 2008. After motorbikes were confiscated, the teenagers’ parents went to Phnom Penh Police Office in order to take their motors back. It was not known that whether the motorbike owners were found or educated. '

  What about cars? Roughly 1 in 10 of all cars has no license plate. Can we safely suggest that these cars might also be involved in

  'committing robberies'?

  Other enthusiastic police officials have

  'detained 93 imported pigs'.

• An airport (Sihanoukville) that currently hardly functions is set to become 'Cambodia's largest'. This to channel in a never ending stream of tourists. Twenty percent growth is required annually, but where will they all stay?

• And then finally an observation from a Malaysian visitor: '

  ... Unlike Kuala Lumpur, the traffic here is not heavy, but it’s crazy. People drive like there are no rules. They ignore traffic lights and the traffic police don’t seem to care.
  
  I never imagined riding a tuk–tuk would be such an adrenaline rush. We’d hang on for dear life as it swerved in and out of traffic. At times, we’d be facing oncoming traffic.
  
  Cars won’t stop for you when you cross the road. Instead they swerve to avoid hitting you. I felt it was like attempting suicide to cross the road. .... '