Arresting the cops
October 26, 2009
Local police, working with the American FBI, have charged another high-ranking cop for drug crimes.
Touch Muysor once held one of the highest positions in the Cambodia police force… Now he’s facing drug and corruption charges. $US100,000 worth of methamphetamines was found in Touch Muysor’s office. He’s the second senior police officer this month to be charged with drug related offences. … the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Dr Anand Chaudhuri, says the arrest of Touch Muysor is evidence that Cambodia is now taking drug prevention very seriously.
Excellent. Now if they could just get rid of those punks on the riverfront.
Scoring in Phnom Penh
September 23, 2009
The dopeman introduced himself to Jon Turner.
The corner of Sisowath Quay about a block north of the Royal Palace is where all the marijuana dealers hang out. Some dealer sidles up to me practically every time I go by, or calls to me if I’m on my bicycle, “Hey man, you want some ganja?”
These jack-asses are a blight on the community. They regularly accost people — tourists, families, people on bicycles — passing by with offers to engage in illegal drug transactions. Why doesn’t anybody call the cops? No prizes for guessing.
These schmucks are the cops.
Sovanna Phum shadow puppets theater razed
September 2, 2009
The Sovanna Phum theater on Street 360 has been razed. The place was famous for shadow puppets and drum performances. The Daily ran a story not so long ago about the land owner wanting the land back, or something like that. Where the association will go is uncertain.
Cambodians unite
August 2, 2009
New social networking site taps into community spirit.
Angkor One, which has become highly popular in a short time, uses networking tools similar to Facebook, allowing users to communicate with friends and family from across the globe. But it also does something that Facebook does not: it asks Cambodians using the site to help out others.
[...]
The Web site has proven effective in mobilizing people beyond their computers. A few weeks ago, for example, Angkor One organized a social event to bring groups of students and monks together to collect litter around Phnom Penh’s Wat Phnom.
The site has become popular, too, ranking 29th most visited from June 22 to July 22, with only five Khmer-language sites ranking higher, according to Alexa.com, which monitors Web traffic.
Electrocuted by The Man
April 23, 2009
Cambodia and Vietnam have finished building power lines that connect Phnom Penh to the Vietnamese power grid.
Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh, will receive additional electricity from Vietnam later this month or by early May, helping to ease the city’s shortage of power for both industrial and domestic use, said Deputy Director of the Electricity of Cambodia (EdC) Chan Sodavath.
According to him, work on a transmission line connecting Vietnam’s An Giang Province via Takeo Province to Phnom Penh has been completed and once it becomes operational in late April or by early next month, the new line is expected to double the amount of electricity that Phnom Penh can now access.
The additional lines will nearly double the capital’s capacity, from 190MW to 390MW. When the deal was first announced in 2008, the government said it would resell this electricity for seven or eight cents per kilowatt, or a fraction of current costs. But that was then. The Daily reported yesterday that Chan Sodavath did not know if the new lines would result in lower electricity prices. Phnom Penh Deputy Municipal Governor Mann Chhoeun was more certain. He said no, he didn’t expect prices to drop.
The government is likely paying about 250 riel per kilowatt for electricity from Vietnam. It could, if it wanted, pass along those savings to businesses and consumers. While the impact of such a move is hard to estimate, it’s safe to say that every dollar not spent on outrageously expensive electricity could be allocated elsewhere.
For those lowest on the economic ladder, that means things like meat and fish. Improved nutrition translates to a healthier population, which in turn boosts productivity and reduces the state’s health care burden. For those in the middle it means more money to spend every month, to buy things like food, clothes, consumer goods. At the top cheaper electricity would likely be a boom to commercial expansion. That would create jobs and pump yet more money into the country’s moribund economy. More buying, selling and building means more tax revenues for the state. At a time when the overall economy could desperately use a windfall of easy money, the government has received a gift heaven-sent.
Except, it appears, that none of that is going to happen. Instead some villain in a Lexus is going to build a new karaoke palace.
Cleaning up the riverfront
January 22, 2009
Matthew Robinson sounds off on the recent storm-trooping of riverfront al fresco dining establishments.
In these times of desperate global recession, the removal of selfishly-parked cars and motorbikes – not tables and chairs – would do much to make Phnom Penh far more appealing to the world’s fast-vanishing tourists.
And tuk-tuks!
Phnom Penh: the beer
December 18, 2008
I tasted it but I could not yet compare it with Angkor Beer.
That doesn’t sound like a compliment.
Dangkor bans kite flying
December 13, 2008
Behold the awesomeness of governmental jack-assery.
THE skies over Dangkor district will be free of kites following an announcement by aviation authorities Thursday that kite-flying posed a risk to airplane safety and would henceforth be banned in the area. The height of new buildings will also be restricted to nine metres. …
Kroch Phan, governor of Dangkao district, said Thursday that authorities would confiscate any kites seen in the no-fly zone.
“We have sent letters to 18 communes in the district announcing our plans to ban people flying kites,” he said.
“We are also banning fireworks and kite sellers from operating in this district, and if we see anyone flying a kite, we will confiscate the kite and keep it in our office.” …
“This is a good decision by the authorities to ban kites because they pose a threat to airplanes, and we will help them by checking around every day and immediately stopping anyone that goes against their order,” said Born Sam Auth, police chief of Dangkor district.
Idiots. Fire them both immediately.
Rat photos banned
December 9, 2008
John Vink reports on the wacky state of media censorship.
The Phnom Penh Post is not allowed to show pictures of people collecting nice fat countryside rats (which are considered a delicacy during hard times), whereas some of those pictures were published in the daily before. The Asian Globe cannot show some pictures of opposition party leader Sam Rainsy. And Ka-set.info cannot show the slideshows of evicted people marching to Phnom Penh to appeal to the Prime Minister, as well as the funeral of Khem Sambo I talked about here. Because ‘this is too political’ they say. Both stories were widely published in the Cambodian press and by Ka-set.info at the time …
Ka-set, via the French Cultural Centre, had submitted a selection of photos to be shown during last week’s Photo Phnom Penh exhibition in the park at Wat Botum. The Department of Cinema asked the online newspaper to remove from the series a few images the department did not like. Ka-set declined. As Mr Vink argues, such capricious censorship makes matters worse for the government, not better.
But one really wonders what is the use of being an ostrich? Who invented those weird animals? Why is it that people think that by putting their head in the sand the embarassing situation they are in will just disappear? It is just embarassing them even more. It is losing face twice.
No word yet as to whether or when the slideshow will be made available online.
CORRECTION: It was the Department of Cinema, not the Ministry of Information, that requested the changes. The post has been corrected accordingly.
Cambodia: How safe is it?
April 29, 2008
Safe as houses London, says a new study.
Phnom Penh is now a safer city than London, New York, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Buenos Aires, although crime rates are still high in rural areas, according to a new report.
The study by Rod Broadhurst and Thierry Bouhours of Australia’s Griffith University surveyed 1,092 households in the capital and 635 in Kandal province, comparing the findings with similar sweeps conducted in 2001 and United Nations crime perception statistics from 26 other cities across the world.
[...]
“We attribute [the fall in crime] to improvements in local governance, more wealth, better security and reduction in firearms,” Broadhurst said by email. However, Phnom Penh is still plagued by high levels of burglary, corruption and theft, and victimization rates in Kandal have remained constant since 2001, the report said.
Shocking Cambodia
April 2, 2008
Travelers tales are always a delight.
So we get a bus from Vietnam setting off at 8am to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. As soon as we crossed the border over to Cambodia I was shocked. It is very very different to Thailand and Vietnam. It felt as if we had been transported back in time and we were back in India. There was litter everywhere, children playing with little to no clothes on, selling trays of pineapples, mangoes and even fried insects!!! Vans and trucks passerd us filled with pigs or chickens. Passing markets there were disgusting stenches of fish or rotting vegetables. Phonm Penh wasn’t much better with street kids selling bits and bobs and tuk tuk drivers harrassing us as soon as we stepped off the bus. Anyway we checked into a half decent hotel and chilled out before heading out for some tea. We found a nice, clean looking restaurant and sat down at a table outside and ordered….after about ten minutes I saw a RAT trundle happily by Nicks chair. I later saw two more rats, and heard screams and a cry of ‘RAT’ from the other side of the restaurant.
Rats gotta eat too, you know.
‘The Perfect Phnom Penh’
March 17, 2008
Tharum’s public flickr group The Perfect Phnom Penh is now up to 105 members and more than 500 photos.
Motocross racing in Phnom Penh
March 5, 2008
TOTAL, major fuel driller and vendor from France, will host its third motorcycle field race in Cambodia on Saturday, national Chinese-language newspaper the Sin Chew Daily said on Wednesday.
Some 40 riders from Cambodia, Indonesia, France, Australia, Thailand, Canada and New Zealand will join the race.
The competitors will show their skills on the field designed near National Road 6A.
Cambodian moto drivers may have finally found their calling.
Colonel Sanders sells ‘happy’ fried chicken
March 4, 2008
Along with roughly 4 brazillion other people, Toe faced the crowds at KFC and reports back.
Honey wasn’t feeling well yesterday and didn’t go to work. To cheer him up and make him feel better, I thought I’d bring him home some pasalubong. … Oh what joy! KFC in Cambodia finally opened during the weekend. I could hardly wait for the day to end so that I could surprise Honey and bring him KFC so that he could feel better. Okay, so it’s not exactly chicken noodle soup, but it’s still chicken, and it does contain the happiness ingredient.
Surely that doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means, does it? Maybe that explains the crowds.
You shoulda been here
November 29, 2007
We had read in some guidebooks that the Phnom Penh International Airport tourist information center was a must see: it was. There was a huge desk with absolutely nothing on our behind it, and an old man sleeping at the desk. …
When we came out of the airport, we were literally attacked by mobs of taxi drivers with nothing to do. How bummed were they when they saw just the four of us coming out of the airport (us and two French guys), realizing we would only require one of their services on that day. We worked our way through the throng of thirty or so drivers like movie stars surrounded by paparazzi, and settled on a fare of $10 per person. One of the French guys was complaining that he thought it should have been about 75 cents each!
The more things change…
City supports street car plan
November 27, 2007
With all the certainty that it reported on the Phnom Penh Skytrain, Xinhua today says that a French company is discussing the possibility of carrying out a feasibility study for an airport-to-city-center tramway.
Jean Lousiv Menuel, president of Alstom, presented his company’s plan to run trams in Phnom Penh and later in Siem Reap province during a recent meeting between a French business delegation and Phnom Penh Municipal Governor Kep Chuktema, the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper said. …
According to the plan, a railway to be called Tranway will connect the outskirts of Phnom Penh to its downtown, from Phnom Penh International Airport to the center.
Kep Chuktema offered his support to the plan, saying that he hopes it will help reduce traffic jams in the city just as the number vehicles on the roads is markedly increasing.
A tram (that’s British for street car) from Central Market — or even better, the train station — would be useful to many people and a lot less expensive than a sky train system. Much of the track is laid, street cars are cheaper than sky trains, and such a route could service Toul Kork residents, university students and passengers headed for the airport. That’s easily a few thousand each day, if not more. Most importantly, though, street cars tend to spur economic growth far, far beyond their building costs. And development doesn’t just flourish along track routes, but blocks beyond, which makes the old train line ideal.
Phnom Penh Night Market
November 13, 2007
Andy checked out the new Phnom Penh Night Market and Traffic Snafu outside Wat Ounalom.
Last night I had dinner with some friends from Siem Reap at the Kandal House restaurant on the riverfront and afterwards took a stroll to visit the brand new night market that has opened up in a designated area opposite Wat Ounalom, for the next few months. Siem Reap already has a well-established night market and city officials have decided its time Phnom Penh has one too. As we perused the stalls, the paintings that you see almost everywhere by the prolific artist Sophannarith were prominent, and I was intrigued when Socheata, who is a souvenir seller at Banteay Kdei and Angkor Wat temples, pointed out that the exact same wooden carving on sale for $13 at a stall on the riverside, sells for just $6 on her own stall. That is a considerable mark-up in anyone’s book. So buyers beware.
According to Phnom Penh officials, the city is giving the night market a two-week trial run, after which officials will assess the new market’s viability. If prices are more than double the already jacked-up-for-tourists rates in Siem Reap, it’s hard to put much faith in the market’s long-term prospects.
Phnom Penh Book Sellers
November 9, 2007
World Street Children News profiles the water front book sellers of Phnom Penh. It’s a touching eight minutes of video, and puts names to faces and gives a little background on many of the kids who sell books.
The ghosts of S-21, cont.
November 1, 2007
Mysterious Universe, a web site dedicated to the supernatural, recently went on a late-night excursion to Toul Sleng in search of ghosts. The writer starts as nearly every daytime tourist does, with the south building, where old bed frames and ammo boxes remain the way Duch abandoned them.
He then moves on to the west building.
As I was about to walk back along the passage, I heard a slow, long creaking sound. I quickly shone the torch’s beam onto the area. The door of the cell closest to the exit was slowly closing.
“It must have been left slightly open when I looked inside” I thought. But before the thought had finished, the next door started swinging slowly open! A second later the next door started moving. It was as if a wave of activity was heading directly for me and there was nowhere I could go!
Suddenly, everything went quiet. Part of me wanted to run out, but part of me was morbidly fascinated by what could still happen. Before I could make the decision the door furthest from me started banging. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Silence.
That’s it? The man went looking for a haunting at Toul Sleng and that’s the best he could do? A few creaky wooden doors shuttering in the wind? Nearly 17,000 innocent people were brutally tortured and executed by the Khmer Rouge at Toul Sleng. You’d think the place would be packed to the rafters with lost souls and angry spirits screaming bloody murder.
Then again, the MU excursion could have very well coincided with P’chum Ben — so it’s quite possible that the ghosts were down at the wat, where ghost-hunters are generally nice enough to refrain from showing up unannounced and empty-handed.
Cambodia: warning, danger ahead
October 24, 2007
In a story about law and order in India, Bijo Francis comments on the relative dangers of Phnom Penh.
Guns, grenades and other weapons are easily available on the open market in the kingdom. This may explain in part why the crime rate is alarmingly high. In Cambodia, to be relatively sure of one’s personal safety it is advisable to have personal bodyguards.
That is beyond ridiculous. What a daft thing to say.
Evicting the landless
October 22, 2007
What happens when a group of villagers who have had their land stolen come to the capital and demand redress from their elected officials? Do you really need to ask?
On October 16, shortly before 7pm, approximately 80 police and military police – some armed with pistols – surrounded a group of about 200 Svay Rieng villagers camped in the park outside Wat Botum near the former National Assembly. The villagers, who had only arrived at the park a few hours earlier, were forced into vehicles including two buses and sent back to Svay Rieng.
According to witnesses, some of the villagers were beaten during the raid on the park, and two persons were later taken to hospital unconscious. NGO workers were blocked by authorities from entering the area, but heard cries coming from the villagers.
“This action by the authorities was unlawful and they clearly knew this – it’s why they did this at night, under the cover of darkness,” said LICADHO president Kek Galabru. “To beat and abduct people, and forcibly take them back to their province in the middle of the night, is appalling.”
The villagers say they represent about 500 families in Tros commune who have had their land taken by the Peam Chaing rubber company. Five hundred families is no small contingency. Nationwide, the number of newly landless must by now reach into the tens of thousands, if not more, with no end in sight.
The landless problem is not new, of course, neither here nor to the region or even the world. Latin America has struggled for decades with similar problems. China, too, faces a rapidly growing class of landless farmers. If Cambodia has anything approaching what might be termed a policy on the matter, it appears to be taking its cues from Beijing (gulp). In both countries, the strategy for dealing with the newly landless is as cruel as it is simple: ignore them. Should they protest, as in the case of the Svay Rieng families, crush them.
The result of such wicked short-term thinking is a burgeoning population of disaffected rural people incensed at the government’s corrupt, urban ruling class. And now, with no land and no work, those people have nothing to do all day but stew in their resentment. What could possibly go wrong with a policy as clever as that?
Restoring the future
September 28, 2007
The FCC propaganda machine says the company has just purchased that gorgeous old French villa across from the National Museum.
The roughly 1,200-square-meter site is famous for the yellow-hued rococo palace that many Phnom Penh residents have at one time gazed at with appreciation, amazement or concern.
Complete with impressive Corinthian capitals and intricate sculptural designs, the building has sat in disrepair for decades — a gorgeous, crumbling mansion with an estimated worth of some $2 million.
Now, according to FCC management, the villa will be completely restored to its past glory and become a 24-room luxury hotel with a swimming pool, French bistro and a structural link to the adjacent FCC restaurant.
Rather conspicuously missing from the whole story, however, is from whom, exactly, the FCC bought the property. Surely that’s public record over at the Department of Land Management, right?
Killer tattoos
August 21, 2007
Erik is was in town, and like a lot of people who visit Phnom Penh, he went down to the riverfront to have a drink. As he and his wife are sitting there, enjoying a tasty beverage, their waiter, as waiters are wont to do, strikes up a conversation — you know, the weather, the family, love potions, the waiter’s invisible magic tattoo that stops him from killing people.
“Oh, you’re worried that someone’s going to put something, like their blood, in your food, huh?”
“Yeah!” his eyes widened a little bit. “You know about that stuff? I also have tattoos to protect me from magic like that, and from ampoeur. You know ampouer?” Ampouer is a word merely meaning ‘action,’ but also has the strongly associated meaning of magic in Khmer. Typical effects of being victimized by a magician of this sort is the sudden appearance of nails, knives, or strange animals like snakes in the stomach.“What tattoos?” I asked him.
“Well, they’re invisible – they used a special kind of ink [check on this word – I don’t know it which disappears. But whenever I’m in danger, or if I get the feeling like I want to do evil to someone, or kill someone, it appears all red.”
(Note to self: stop eating at the Riverside.)
New traffic rules
October 23, 2006
In an apparent effort to curb the city’s burgeoning traffic-related death toll, the wise men at City Hall have decreed that, from this day forward, all motorcycles must have wing mirrors and indicator lights.
Phnom Penh (dpa) – Cambodian authorities in the capital have issued a decree warning the city’s half million-plus motorcyclists that they must use lights and wing mirrors in an effort to curb Phnom Penh’s growing road toll.
In a copy of the proclamation obtained from Phnom Penh City Hall Monday, authorities have told the city’s infamously anarchic motorists that they have until the end of the month to comply of face unspecified means of “correction.”
Cambodia has virtually no manufacturing base, meaning all vehicles are imported, and mirrors were long since abandoned by most motorcyclists as they are difficult to transport from overseas and once fitted make squeezing through small spaces in traffic more difficult.
Mirrors are sold separately as accessories, and traffic police monitoring roads around the capital’s bustling Daem Kor Market Monday said the concept may be difficult to reintroduce without hefty fines to back it up, because mirrors are often seen as something that real men don’t use.
“Most drivers with mirrors are women. Women use them to touch up make-up,” one skeptical officer, whose own private bike does not sport mirrors, said.
Clearly, something should be done to get a handle on Phnom Penh’s anarchic traffic. But requiring wing mirrors and indicator lights seems about as likely to work as, say, requiring drivers to have a working speedometer. Which is to say, not one bit. Because the real problem is not a lack of wing mirrors — or indicator lights, for that matter — it’s that people have nothing but contempt for traffic laws and the police officers that occasionally try to enforce them.
Ericsson moves in
September 13, 2006
According to the Bangkok Nation, global telephone giant Ericsson opened its first Cambodian office Monday.
Swedish telecom company Ericsson is upbeat about its business growth in Cambodia, thanks to the forecast growth of mobile-phone subscribers and the availability of third-generation (3G) licences.
The company opened its first office in the capital of Phnom Penh on Monday, in order to foster its operations and expand its market share there.
Ericsson had previously run its business in Cambodia from Thailand for 10 years.
Jan Signell, president of Ericsson Southeast Asia, cited analysts’ reports that the number of mobile-phone subscribers in Cambodia was expected to grow to more than 3 million by 2010, up from 1.4 million as of this past June.
For all the government does to encourage Thailand and Vietnam to move their environment-fouling factories into Cambodia, a lot more should be done to specifically attract high-profile internationals such as Ericsson. The legitimacy those companies give to the nation is priceless. Their presence alone can alter the perception that Cambodia is a lawless, corrupt and wildly unfriendly place to do business.
Vehicle-mounted loudspeakers banned
September 13, 2006
A story in the Cambodia Daily this morning adds to the ever-growing list of banned things in the Kingdom.
Phnom Penh Municipality has banned the use of loudspeakers mounted on trucks for advertising purposes, Municipal Governor Kep Chuktema said Tuesday.
A municipal order issued Monday states that the government will confiscate all loudspeaker trucks being used to promote movies and other unspecified products. …
Kep Chuktema said the ban will not apply to rights groups and is not designed to limit freedom of expression.
That Kep Chuktema says the ban is not intended to curb freedom of expression is a pretty good indicator that it is. But those movie trucks are hella-annoying, and whatever human-rights message needs getting across, there is zero need to get it across at 160 decibels. If movie theaters and human rights groups are unhappy with the new order, they are most certainly in the minority.
Whoops!
September 4, 2006
VIA Military Photos: It seems somebody couldn’t quite manage to get things off the ground. (Photo after the fold.)
Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA: Airport’s fire fighters arrive at the scene where a Cambodian tourist plane PB10 ran out of the runway into a nearby lake after trying to take off from Phnom Penh International Airport, 03 September 2006. Four passengers, including three south koreans, are safe. The plane was expected to head for Rattanakiri Province some 610 Kilometers Northeast of the capital Phnom Penh. AFP PHOTO/ STR (Photo credit should read TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP/Getty Images)
Zen and the art of getting faceless
August 26, 2006
To the average gin-soaked, power-drinking college kid, a night like this would be considered legendary.
Phnom Penh – A Cambodian Buddhist monk who stripped naked and raced through suburban streets after a heavy night of drinking rice wine laced with toads has been asked to leave the monkhood, a religious official said Saturday.
Sim Soktriya, chief monk of Russei Keo district on the outskirts of the capital, said a woman discovered the naked monk Friday passed out on her doorstep.
Asked to leave the monkhood? Ya think?
What’s really amazing is that getting faceless drunk, streaking through the streets and passing out naked on the neighbors front porch is not considered unruly enough to actually get a monk thrown out.
Ginger Monkey murder conviction
August 19, 2006
It’s extremely difficult to know what to make of Jane Nye’s recent statement questioning whether the young man convicted of killing her boyfriend, and trying to kill her, is in fact the right person.
“Regardless of Lao Chamrong’s confession, and what I believe to be a coerced confession at that, I cannot say for certain that he is the perpetrator,” Ms Nye told NZPA from Phnom Penh.
Details at the time of the attack were, as always, a bit sketchy. Police — or officers from a private security firm who then called police — had found the boy an hour or so after the attack just a few blocks away from the couple’s apartment. He was reportedly covered in blood and cleaning a blood-stained knife.
Also at that time, a rash of nighttime burglaries had plagued the area. Reports of telephones and laptops gone missing in the night occurred almost daily. So reports of a teenager prowling through homes at night made sense. When police said they had arrested a homeless boy from the neighborhood in connection with the murder, that made sense too.
But in a town famous for its gossip and conspiracy theories, it made a little too much sense for some, and suspicions and rumors spread that the cops had just gone out and grabbed the first glue-sniffer they could find. Case closed.
By Nye’s own admission, though, she never saw her attacker. Memory, too, seldom records events clearly. But such is the reputation of the Cambodian legal system that even when the evidence would appear to state otherwise, nobody ever believes the cops.
EDITED: First paragraph edited for clairty.
