2008-09-11 - Walking to Work

Part of the deal between ABV and CARE is that CARE offer daily transport to/from work. However, the relatively short distance (~30min walk) and the plentiful supply of good, cheap food encourage walking instead. If it does happen to be raining at going home time (doesn’t usually rain in the early morning it seems), you can try to grab a tuktuk, or just get wet.

Some street scenes:

Building site

Rich person's house

Flowering vine

Walking down Golden St (St 278), about to turn left

Power pole - if you look closely, 2 of the legs at the base are rusted right through

Walking also offers a lot of interesting sights of everyday Phnom Penh life, such as garbage collection routines, the street vendors, construction work and of course the traffic.

Scaffolding - made from large bamboo poles (also being loaded onto truck)

One of the kids working at the construction site - the sacks are used to carry (by hand) materials up and down the building

The walk also takes us through the Boeung Keng Kang market – a covered (sort of) market crammed with locals selling mainly food and clothes. Strangely, the market is below regular street level, so whenever it rains heavily, the place floods. Unlike the bigger and more touristy Russian market, this one is purely for locals.

Entering the market

In the market

Rubbish bin - made from old tyres

Street sign and guard house

Major intersection outside the CARE office - first in, best dressed

Views from the CARE office roof

There is a tuktuk driver (among others) that usually hangs out outside the guest house – he knows Matt and Liane, and used to take them to CARE and other places, but since they started walking to work daily (and telling him no to the offer of a tuktuk ride), he sees them come out and throws up his arms and says “walk, always walk”. Quite funny.

Some sad news too - a fox or such has raided my chook house back in Canberra, killing all 3. I should get some Khmer onto the case - they know how to build a good security fence.