Shoe shining and paper aeroplanes

It's easy to mock tuk tuk drivers or moto top drivers, with their incessant shouts of "tuk tuk?!?" or "moto?!?" As soon as you appear around the corner, they will spring up with the hope of a puppy at dinner time, eager to take anything that you may offer. Our answer of having a bike already or just being out for a walk can cause a slump worse than any stock market has witnessed.

In Europe or America, to earn a living you look for an employer to give you a job. In developing countries, there are very few employers and if you want money to eat, you have to think what you can do to earn money yourself. The question is: "What can I do that will persuade people to give me money?"

I've had 13 years at school followed by 5 years at university and I have no idea what I  could do or produce that would persuade people to give me money. I made a wooden chair once when I was 12 but wouldn't remember how to do it now. Judging by my hairstyles, I don't think offering to cut people's hair for them would be an option. My restaurant would only be able to serve cheese toasties and I get a sore back when ironing for too long (the board is always too low). Imagine how hard this could be when you are illiterate and find it difficult to count and then add in the consideration that you are trying to sell to people whose monthly income is $100.

In my opinion, I can make the best paper aeroplanes ever, but they don't tend to last very long so I couldn't charge very much. I was pretty good at polishing my school shoes though so I guess that is what I could do. I could be a shoe shine boy. Put me into a situation in Cambodia where I would have to be self-employed and my best idea is to earn some money by shining shoes, with a paper aeroplane business on the side.

One lunch time a few months ago, when the heat scares people indoors, I watched my moto dop friend paced around his moto. He would wipe his seat, inspect his face in the wing mirror, look down one street, then another and then another. He would look down all four streets that can be seen from the intersection but there was nobody there. Without any customers, he didn't know what to do other than what he had been doing for two decades.

We have phrases in English that have become so common that we have lost an understanding of what the words mean. To counter this, when we do actually mean what we are saying, we insert the word "literally". In Cambodia, there are literally some people who do not know what to do with themselves. They don't have skills or ideas and they only know what they've done before. If that stops working then what else can they do?

Sometimes, I become slightly tired of tuk tuks offering you a ride or market sellers asking if you want to buy something and when I do I feel a bit ashamed. Despite the vast majority of people saying no, they keep on asking, they keep on offering, they keep on putting themselves out there for a disappointment. If I was a shoe-shiner or a paper-aeroplane seller, I don't think I would be able to keep going like they do.

Gordon

trains, tuk tuks and folding-up bikes

When I lived in London, I considered getting a fold up bike so that I could cycle to the underground train, fold it up, carry it on before unfolding it at the other end and cycling to work. For many commuters, being able to cut down those precious minutes of walking to the station, or even better, being able to cycle to work after getting a train into London, the fold-up bike was a piece of magic. However, the magic does not come cheap and good ones were £400-£600.

In Cambodia, there is a famous bamboo train in Battambang. Its fame comes from being the only passenger train service in the country and how the trains manage to navigate past each other on a single track line. As two trains approach the other, the one with the lightest load stops and everybody get's off and stands at the side as the driver literally picks up the train and moves it off the tracks.

There really isn't a problem with having to give your seat to disabled and elderly passengers.

Life up the bamboo and steel carriage and your left with some axes and wheels. Add a petrol motor and that's all you need for a train. 

As you can imagine the train really isn't used by a lot of commuters. In fact, the train will carry you 15 minutes in one direction and then after a drink and a purchase of some touristy stuff at a stall, it will turn around and take you back to where you started. The only people it could be useful for is my colleague's  family whose house is right beside the tracks, and even then, only if they want to buy touristy stuff at a stall 15 minutes away.

As well as not having a passenger train service, no city or town has a public bus system. It was tried in Phnom Penh but the narrowness of many roads, the absence of traffic control and the love of motos meant that it didn't last very long.

Now, most people in Cambodia are also very poor, so considering this and the absence of mass public transport, there is no reason to think that Cambodia is an untapped market waiting to grab as many folding-up bikes as they can. Plus, in a country where the bike is the mode of transport for many, many people, you would think the shortcomings of the little-wheeled bike would be very apparent. However, regardless of all of these things, the folding-up bike is here, there and everywhere.

A lonely fold-up bike in Siem Reap

Phnom Penh is pretty wealthy and there are even some trendy sorts, so you could nearly see why come people might have them here but we didn't expect to see a girl cycling on one in an extremely remote village right on the border with Laos. I just stood there scratching my head thinking, how can she afford one of those and how the heck did it get here? It certainly didn't arrive on a train.

A girl on a fold-up bike in a tiny village in remote Preah Vihear province

I have a feeling that the global sale of fold-up bikes did not meet expectations, and that a market for cheaper fold-up bikes was never established. This could have meant that mass produced fold-up bikes, probably from nearby China, remained unsold and were shipped to anywhere that would take them. It seems that many people in Cambodia put their hands up. 

It could actually be that in Cambodia, there is a use for them. Some witty tuk tuk drivers will see you on your bike and tell you it would be much easier to put the bike in the tuk tuk, sit back and relax. And when there is torrential rain, they may have a point. The problem is that the bike sticks out from either side of the tuk tuk and you have to pray that your driver remembers his vehicle is now a little bit wider. But if you could fold up your bike when putting it in a tuk tuk...

The tuk tuk and the fold-up bike. Facing away from each other, this couple don't seem to have realised their future together.

Gordon

To drive on the left or right?

Before coming to Cambodia, we had laughingly been told to enjoy the traffic. No descriptions were given because it seemed that none could do justice for what lay in store for us. Officially, you drive on the right in Cambodia. But not always.

Firstly, if you are turning left, you do not go forward into the far away lane, and then turn left, you go over to the left hand lane before the corner and follow the kerb around so that you are driving towards the oncoming traffic in their lane. Whilst driving forward, you then try to veer over to your righthand lane - avoiding the oncoming traffic whilst doing so.

You can also overtake by going into the left hand lane at time you like and on any road you like, no matter how narrow. The oncoming traffic should just stop to let you overtake and move back in. Or sometimes, they will weave in between you and the vehicle you're overtaking. Simple.

Thankfully, cars are in the minority with most people on small motorbikes or in tuk tuks which gives room for all this swerving. Two other volunteers, Ellen and Catherine, in a tuk tuk below.

Bikes are also common and it is by bicycle that we are to get around Phnom Penh. So on Thursday Claire and I took to our bikes for the first time. What makes cycling even more interesting is that there are no road rules. There are no give way signs, no stop signs, no road markings and very few lights.

So when approaching junctions, nobody has right of way. Cars, tuk tuks, motos,  bikes and pedestrians all meet at a four way junction and have to work out for themselves who is going where and when. Cue lots of zig zagging, swerving and braking as everybody comes to a near stop in the middle.

The plus side of this anarchy is that nobody goes very quickly and people accept the muddling through without road rage. So, the only unforeseen thing we encountered was the uncommonly heavy rainfall, for this time of year, which we cycled to work through.

And as you can see by our smiles, that only seemed to make the whole thing more exhilarating.

Gordon