Your first day in a new country, there will always be that list of things that struck you as different or even odd. For me, that half hour drive from the Phnom Penh airport to the hotel where we would be staying was the time where my eyes were wide open and soaking up this new environment; it’s where I started my list for this trip.
So, the things that made an impression on me or left me shocked are as follow:
1.The lack of traffic control. And by the lack of I mean none whatsoever. If there were even traffic lights, no one listened to them… along with the lanes on the road, the direction you were supposed to be driving, the speed limit (if their was one)… everything. Sitting in our van driving forward there would be people driving all sorts of directions on every part of the street. It’s all just one big clump of whose-the-most-aggressive-and-will-fight-to-get-to-where-they-want-to-go-first.
2. Along with the skewed traffic, the amount of motorcycles shocked me. There were, by far, more motorbikes than cars… which might also be why the traffic rules are so nonexistent.
3. Like I said in my last blog entry, the pork and alcohol availability shocked me. But that’s not just Cambodia; whenever I leave our corner of the world it takes me a while to get used to. [By the end of the trip, when we went to restaurants, I was ordering every meal with a side order of bacon].
4. Oh the wonderful rain. Though our group member who lived in London wasn’t too fond of it, Tas and I took advantage of every second of it. It rained more in the two weeks that we were there than it has in the UAE for the last one… maybe two years.
5. Along with the rain, the clouds were definitely different than what we are used to. I had never really thought about it, but after seeing the big white fluffy clouds there I realized that the UAE is more or less cloudless. And if there are clouds, it’s nothing like the ones there.
6. And finally, when visiting Olympic Stadium and just, in general, I was pleasantly surprised by the locals’ motivation to keep exercising and doing sports despite the conditions they were doing it in. The soccer fields we saw had no grass, the basketball court was one wooden hoop with a cement floor and so on. That didn’t stop them though. And even when it started to pour and they were drenched in 2 seconds, they didn’t mind; everyone still continued playing. And I think that action in itself reflects what I noticed in a lot of Cambodians throughout the trip: they are grateful, hopeful and they don’t let the little things get in their way.
This list of things, among with others, were the initial factors I had to get used to in order to adapt to the country and eventually accept its ways.
LM
So, the things that made an impression on me or left me shocked are as follow:
1.The lack of traffic control. And by the lack of I mean none whatsoever. If there were even traffic lights, no one listened to them… along with the lanes on the road, the direction you were supposed to be driving, the speed limit (if their was one)… everything. Sitting in our van driving forward there would be people driving all sorts of directions on every part of the street. It’s all just one big clump of whose-the-most-aggressive-and-will-fight-to-get-to-where-they-want-to-go-first.
2. Along with the skewed traffic, the amount of motorcycles shocked me. There were, by far, more motorbikes than cars… which might also be why the traffic rules are so nonexistent.
3. Like I said in my last blog entry, the pork and alcohol availability shocked me. But that’s not just Cambodia; whenever I leave our corner of the world it takes me a while to get used to. [By the end of the trip, when we went to restaurants, I was ordering every meal with a side order of bacon].
4. Oh the wonderful rain. Though our group member who lived in London wasn’t too fond of it, Tas and I took advantage of every second of it. It rained more in the two weeks that we were there than it has in the UAE for the last one… maybe two years.
5. Along with the rain, the clouds were definitely different than what we are used to. I had never really thought about it, but after seeing the big white fluffy clouds there I realized that the UAE is more or less cloudless. And if there are clouds, it’s nothing like the ones there.
6. And finally, when visiting Olympic Stadium and just, in general, I was pleasantly surprised by the locals’ motivation to keep exercising and doing sports despite the conditions they were doing it in. The soccer fields we saw had no grass, the basketball court was one wooden hoop with a cement floor and so on. That didn’t stop them though. And even when it started to pour and they were drenched in 2 seconds, they didn’t mind; everyone still continued playing. And I think that action in itself reflects what I noticed in a lot of Cambodians throughout the trip: they are grateful, hopeful and they don’t let the little things get in their way.
This list of things, among with others, were the initial factors I had to get used to in order to adapt to the country and eventually accept its ways.
LM
