Chasing Cars, more than 1 month later ....

I could start of this posting by offering my apologies for not posting for such a long time. But I'm not. Traffic wise there's simply so little to report on. It's been hot so not so much traffic. Everybody is being wearing helmets so no wacky government / law instructions on that. And it seems like everybody is content.

• Starting with content. The

  'Bangkok/Siem Reap Overland Guide'
  

  has once more reinvented itself. Hardly any problems anymore with the road just with bus company rip offs and border problems. Why the bus companies and border officials can't solve this a la going to Vietnam is beyond me.

• An aircraft has been sighted at Sihanoukville airport. That's a huge increase over the past years 0 aircraft.

• Phnom Penh City is experimenting (on advice of the Japanese) with charging drivers for parking. Currently you are allowed to park virtually anywhere even to the extent of blocking traffic, who cares. The 'experiment' lasts a full week on a short stretch of inner city road. Wow!

  '...the point of the exercise, which runs through June 2, is to reduce the number of vehicles along Charles de Gaulle and discourage “anarchic parking”. Fees are being collected by Sky Security Service.
  Masato Koto, an urban planning consultant for the city who dreamed up the scheme, said his long-term vision was to restrict roadside parking along major thoroughfares to designated areas while imposing charges to drive down demand. By doing so, he said, officials could make Phnom Penh more pedestrian-friendly.
  “In other countries, sidewalks are only for pedestrians,” he said. “But Cambodia is different. Here sidewalks are for parking cars, so we have to change this characteristic.”'

  But the Cambodian side is already whining. Charges are too high. '

  Masato acknowledged that the charges had drawn criticism, but said they needed to be high in order to effectively deter parking.
  “If the cost is high, then people will no longer want to park here. That’s the point,” he said.
  “The number of cars is increasing every day, but the land in the city is limited, so we have to control the demand for parking.”'

  Yes, but now the rich dudes end up paying for something which was free. Where's the justice in this?

• An article in the Phnom Penh Post presumably about a new bridge north of Phnom Penh across the Tonle Sap river. Content of the article is about the more than 200 lorries Cambodia gets from China packed with 50,000 free military uniforms. This in exchange for kicking out a couple of asylum seekers, it seems.

• 

  'A weighty issue. A motodop driver and a security guard try to help a tuk-tuk laden with boxes of bottled water get back on its wheels at the intersection of Norodom Boulevard and Street 214 last week'.

  Phnom Penh Post April 28, 2010.

• A huge piece in the Phnom Penh Post concerning the history of Cambodia's rail network. Saturady 5 June will see the Chinese House Express, a 3 hour (or longer) trip north of Phnom Penh with a jazz concert in a rice paddy.

• What's wrong with bus companies? They all suck?

• A new piece of the Phnom Penh city has been revealed. Three of the 12 roads have been approved of this 'secretive' city expansion. Part of the plan will be a flyover for which some city citizens will have to move.

• A miscreant in Siem Reap wants to sue the police because he failed to stop when required to do so by police. He was consequently hit on the head by traffic police with a walkie-talkie device so as to enforce the stop signal. It worked. He stopped and needed stitches. Miscreant claims expenses plus

  '$1,500 for mental illness compensation'.

  But arguably he was already mentally deranged before incident ....

• Finally Monument Books have nearly sold out of he Wall & Kemp Carrying Cambodia photo book. One can though still order from others such as Borders or Amazon. Or simply open up the Life in Cambodia website with arguably more interesting photo's.