Blackjack Scams in Phnom Penh

There’s been a long running thread on a popular Cambodia forum about Filipino blackjack scammers. Well, it isn’t just Filipinos and it’s been happening for a long time. The following is the write-up of my experience with blackjack scams back in 1992 during my first overseas trip, with updates and background added. I covered 8 Asian countries in one year and started in Thailand.

My first day in Chiang Mai, Thailand's second city, I stopped to rest and peruse on one of my exploratory walks and Rudy approaches. When traveling, one of the things I most like to do to get the feel of a new place is pound the pavement: I walk endlessly. This makes you available for a lot of potential happenings. Rudy starts with, You Italian? ...America, what a coincidence, I was born in Hawaii. He’s 63, was raised in Indonesia, but his story, background, is confusing and hard to figure. After a few minutes of light conversation he asks if I have any important engagements otherwise he’ll take me to meet his nephew, have a few drinks. He also has a young niece I’d like to meet. The way he sweet-talked the young girl in the shared taxi on the way to the nephew’s, I thought his story of having nineteen kids with six wives might actually be true.

The sweet young thing I’d like to meet makes a cameo appearance, says hello and disappears. Rico, his nephew, who looks to be in his mid-thirties, has a nice house in a residential part of the city. He's conversant in English and we spend maybe 20 minutes talking about recycling, the work I’d just left, amongst other general topics. Then after our perfunctory bit of small talking he explains he’s a pit boss for a chain of casinos, but to make a little side money he’s looking for a partner to learn his program for winning at blackjack. If I can do it he’ll stake me and I’ll get a 25% cut. He says there are lots of Japanese and Chinese high rollers who practically enjoy losing their money. He assures me I can make $25,000 in one sitting and he’s persistent about showing me how it works, in spite of my repeated attempts to decline the invite.

Rico’s dealing; in the real game that I’m training for, the guy that likes to lose his money bankrolls the dealer. I’m sitting across from Rico playing against the house. Rico gives me hand signals or shows me the cards… if you don’t get it on the first show, touch your eyebrow. He likes the way I shuffle, I talk about playing blackjack as a teenager (I almost always lost). Yes, he thinks I can learn his program and explains that he can’t use an oriental, they would be suspect, whereas I would make a perfect cover. He says he tried a black American guy once but he got greedy and demanded an unfair 50%. I don’t know Rico, this is kind of sudden, I’ll have to get back to you.

Meanwhile I’m visualizing my throat being cut by one of those Japanese or Chinese patsies who love to lose their money should they become apprised of what’s happening. Rico then repeats a story about his wife being in the hospital and he’s in dire need of $3000 to get her out. He goes on to say that there’s a guy in town who has $5000 to lose, he can set up a game for that afternoon and we can make it a practice run. Rico, I’ll have to think about it.

Rudy tried mightily, but unsuccessfully, to get me to go with Rico’s scam, meanwhile there is somewhere else he really wants to take me and it turns out to be a working class brothel. He says the girls are between 15 and 19 and while Asians do tend to look young in European eyes a couple of them looked decidedly younger. At one point in our conversation over beers at the knocking shop he kisses his cross, explaining he’s a Catholic, and a short time later he’s telling me that the owner gives him first crack at the virgins, but says he’s not interested and jokes about them being too small. (Fascinating, isn’t it, how people can profess their faith one minute and then almost instantly become the antithesis of piety?)

It was my first brothel experience - being very drunk it was hard to resist - but set the tone, with very few succeeding ones, of it clearly and definitely not being my bag. He made the whole brothel thing sound so commonplace – with me being totally new to prevailing attitudes towards the Asian sex scene – I asked him if he thought it would be okay for his own daughters to be prostitutes. Oh no, they don’t have to, he replied. As I was leaving he asked me for 100 baht ($4), said he was broke… big talker, small time beggar.

Eight months later I was in the Philippines in Bagio, a sweet little town in the mountains north of Manila. When I arrived it was overcast and rainy, and being at 5000 feet - 1700 meters - I got chilled and that, compounded by my trying to travel too far too fast, thus stressing my system out, got me a serious cold and I spent several days recovering.

As I began to perk up I took a little walk and Robert pulls up to begin a conversation. He seems like a decent guy and I haven’t had the opportunity to relate much so I agree to sit down for a cup of coffee. He’s traveled some around Southeast Asia and says one of his sisters is about to go to the US to study. She and his mother would both like to meet me, talk and ask questions about America. On the way we meet up with a cousin and head for his house. He offers me a cup of tea and I spot some medicine - a bottle of J & B - and offer myself a shot. No sign of sister or mother.

After a few minutes of small talk he tells me that he works in a casino and he’s looking for a partner to win some money in a private blackjack game. Seems like there are lots of Japanese and other gamblers who like to lose their money and I can make $2000 in an afternoon. Haven’t I heard this one before? I try to head him off but he insists on seeing if I can learn his method. His hand signals for showing me the cards were almost identical to the ones used by Rico back in Thailand. He had the same rap about me being a good cover, that he couldn’t use an Oriental, the sucker would suspect, and even the same story about working with a black American guy who got greedy and demanded 50% instead of 25%.

He too had a female relative - this time a sister - who needed medical attention that very day and a loser who could be called over to part with his money in two hours. He was persistent in spite of my refusals so I told him about Rico back in Thailand, that he offered me $25,000 in a sitting, that I still wasn’t interested, that I didn’t feel well and had to go. But you haven’t met my sister. Maybe another time, I responded. He then asked me for 100 pesos ($4) to help towards the sister’s (20,000 peso) operation. Fortunately I only had 50 pesos showing (I usually kept most bigger bills in a secret pocket I had sewn into my pants) and figured that wasn’t an unreasonable price to pay for a cup of tea and a shot of J & B. The cousin accompanied me out and offered to sell me a $2 fake gold ring for $200 - to raise money for the operation, of course. Sorry pal, but I only have barely enough money to travel with. Then he tried for an $80 loan with the ring as collateral. Sorry.

The similarity of the two scams was uncanny. I mentioned my experience to a traveler friend who then related a story of an Australian guy he’d met who’d actually gone for a similar scam only to discover there was more collusion working against him than with him. Besides, knowing the cards doesn’t stop them from sometimes going against you; assuming that is, that they were dealt honestly. He narrowly escaped being taken for a bundle of money – they’d escorted him to an ATM, but he’d successfully made a run for it - and had to leave town quick. I kept wondering if there was a book in print with a chapter that described in utmost detail how to bilk an unsuspecting tourist in a blackjack money scam. Did my ‘friends’, 1500 miles apart, in two different countries, read it and study it to the point where they could repeat it almost verbatim? A year later back in Manila while hanging out watching the passing throng, a young guy came by. He introduced himself, started small talk and soon seemed eager, too eager, to have me meet his family. This isn’t one of those blackjack scams is it? I asked him. He left without a goodbye.

One reason I nearly always lost playing blackjack with friends as a teenager was that some were adept at cheating. That experience permanently soured me from a taste for gambling. After that discovery I ceased to gamble my cigarette money (25 cents a pack in the mid-fifties – same as Cambo today) and let the losers bum fags off me. Even if there was no cheating involved, I wasn’t happy about being broke and having to beg smokes from the others. Five or six years later, in 1961, I stopped at a casino in Las Vegas on a cross country trip and lost a dollar, maybe two in a one-arm bandit. It was a full 43 years later, while visiting mom in the fogey home, that I next entered a casino. Twice a month they’d fill up the minibus with anyone who wanted to go to the Indian casino and gave us all a $10 credit to start us off. I’d quickly lose that and maybe another ten of my own money before I stopped.

Unlike in 1960 when you had to drop your coin in the slot and then pull down a large lever to get the lemons to roll, which at least took several seconds, now you have your prepaid card inserted and press a button and presto, in a matter of 2 seconds you’ve lost your money. Well, it is possible to win, but the longer you play, the less likely winning becomes since the house has to have its cut, else how could they pay for those grand palaces they build? All the above is just to say that I’m not a gambler and absolutely not a scammer and wouldn’t go for the blackjack scam under any circumstances, even if I believed it was a money-maker.

However, it was fascinating to watch the casino scene for an hour or so, since, on my own accord, casinos are the last place you’ll ever find me: my interest is less than nil. I was amazed watching a woman playing two slot machines at the same time, I guess she didn’t want to wait one second for the play to finish so needed two machines to keep her occupied.

We were there in the daytime and I appreciated the fact that casinos in Minnesota aren’t allowed to serve alcoholic beverages. Alcohol is the grease that helps losers part with their money. They start drinking to relax and ease tension, then when they start losing bad, it gives them the courage to go-for-broke to try to win back their losses. My brother, who spent a few years in Reno, told me an anecdote about ultimate losers who, after maxing out their credit or debit cards would go to an appliance store – some are open all night – and purchase a TV or whatever (you can still use a card for purchases after you can no longer get cash out of it) and then take it nearby to a pawn shop and off it for 25 or 50 cents on the dollar. You know, last chance to win it all back, except by then the guy is already desperate, which means he takes excessive chances, which then makes winning almost impossible.

I did something very unkind while wheeling mom around (she could walk but not too far). We stopped to watch the action at a high-stakes blackjack table – minimum bet $25 – off the walkway behind a waist high partition. The table was full, the dealer had a 5 showing. For those of you unfamiliar with blackjack, that means he has to take a hit and since most cards are high numbers chances are good he has a high card underneath and will go over 21 and lose. All the players on the table had stayed in after seeing the dealer’s dicey card. One had an ace showing, another, a young gal, had doubled down with two picture cards. She had a big stack of chips on the bet; at least several hundred if not thousands of dollars at stake. When it came to the dealer showing his cards, he had a very small number underneath. He then started turning cards up and when he’d gotten to five, the maximum, he had 21 points, meaning everybody had lost. When I saw the sad look on his face, indicating he actually felt sorry for the table of big losers, I broke out into one of my 90 decibel guffaws, I couldn’t help myself. You could’ve heard me halfway across the casino. The gal who’d lost bad gave me the evil eye, but hell, easy come easy go, right? You don’t gamble unless you don’t mind losing, right?

They call it gaming now, not gambling. You know, it’s a game, just for fun, same as playing Monopoly or Scrabble. I could see it as entertainment if it didn’t cost so much and wreck so many lives and families. In fact, I love a friendly poker game with a maximum 25 or 50 cent bet. Drink and smoke, laugh and joke for half the night and watch the cards unfold. Can’t lose enough to make a difference, can’t win enough to care, just a lot of fun.

 Cambostan

Apartment Hunting in Phnom Penh

About six weeks after I arrived in Phnom Penh near the end of 2001 I was determined to get my own apartment. Guest houses are fine for a few days but a combination of teaching and thus needing a place to keep things together, a private space to bring home a companion, the ability to make my own coffee in the morning and thus greet the day at my leisure, and maybe most important, a spot for my hammock, required my own space.

Wandering around near the Old Market, I spotted an expat having noodle soup at a local restaurant and thought it was worth checking it out. Those were ancient times when we expats were few and far between – there are ten times as many westerners in Cambodia now than back then – and I was new to the place and tended to trust an eatery if there was another foreigner there. After soup he showed me his place. By the way, the restaurant, at the corner of Streets 13 and 110, is still going strong.

As I remember, he was paying $120 for a clean, really nice, partly furnished place in the area. It was one of those places with tiles half way up the wall. It looks kinda silly, but is a lot easier to keep clean. That rent level was way above my means as I was just starting work and tight with cash. He mentioned a place he’d seen for $50 a month that he’d rejected for being too funky. I checked it out: it was as he’d described it, but I easily adapt to funky so figured I could handle it for the 4 months or so I’d be around.

The apartment had a red and white tiled floor that was commonly used back in the sixties when the place was built. The great thing about ceramic tiles is they never loose their structural integrity; that is, with the exception of a few chips here or there, they’re just as solid after fifty years of use as the day the were laid in place. The same, however, cannot be said of their decorative aspect as the colors can be worn off to ugliness after a couple of decades and they can become discolored in many ways. Still, for fifty bucks a month for a full flat I wasn’t complaining.  

The place was barely furnished, a few plastic chairs, a bed and two or three pieces of hardly usable old wooden furniture. The one thing a landlord will provide, if nothing else, is a sleeping arrangement of some sort. It already had a wooden bed so he provided a mattress, pillows and a sheet. The sheet was pure polyester which my skin reacts to with abhorrence so my first task the next day was to find something to sleep on with a little cotton in it. The mattress was very cheap and lost its shape with a soft space conforming to my body after only two nights so not very comfortable, but once again for the price I had to take it as it came.

The apartment was very strangely designed with the public stairway in between the kitchen/bath area and the rest of the living space with two lockable doors to the two areas. I hesitated a bit because of that but figured since I was on the third floor with only one apartment above me, there wouldn’t be many people going through my space. What I didn’t account for was that I’d essentially be going through other people’s apartments. My oversight became especially clear when I’d escort an overnight companion down the stairs in the morning with everybody lolling around in the midst of their wake up routine staring at us. We were like a two-person parade. If it hadn’t been that the gate to the outside was locked I could’ve let her go by herself, thus avoiding some embarrassment. It’s much better in my mind to have easy access to outside, especially if you’re up high and have to walk down and up lots of stairs twice when anybody visits. Don’t forget, ceilings are so high here that three floors here is equivalent to 5 floors in the states.

Having the gate locked didn’t stop me from being ripped off, obviously an inside job. When I told others in the building that I was living alone they were very surprised since all of the other flats were occupied by at least two families. At any rate there were lots of people with access within the gate. It wasn’t very secure to begin with, since the lock only went through two relatively small steel eyelets and it was a snap for the thief to pry one open. The landlord responded by buying very big eyelets and having them welded shut.

So the first question regarding renting an apartment is access from the outside. Many places in the city require you to go through the owner’s first floor apartment to get to yours and they’ll never give you a key. That’s okay if you don’t care about your privacy and if you’re typically in bed early. But if you’re out till the wee hours nearly every night and have to bang on the door and wake the owner to get in, well, it just wouldn’t work out very well for me.

After I returned from my annual trip to the states, I needed once again to find an apartment. This time I had the help of a friend’s Khmer wife. Commissions are always paid in those circumstances, so helping you isn’t a selfless act. First she took me to a flat that had been converted into small windowless rooms, each with a bathroom, which were partitioned off rather than built with walls that went to the ceiling. Great privacy there. For that they wanted $40 month. Obviously unacceptable.

They also had a larger room with a small window that was set up for air-conditioning. Take this one, she urges me. I don’t like air-con I respond. That’s okay, don’t turn it on. Well now, it doesn’t work that way since if it’s set up for air-con you pretty much have to use it. Air-conditioning requires that you be able to seal the room off from the outside. It had one small window, not enough to provide much natural ventilation, so without manufactured cold air it’d be a hot, stale, airless room. For an apartment to be survivable - if not necessarily comfortable - in very hot weather without air-con there has to be cross ventilation so breezes can blow through and dissipate accumulated heat.

Next she shows me a place that was perfect for my needs: full flat also close to the Old Market, second floor, good cross ventilation, easy private access, eighty bucks a month. It was on Street 17 which is only a block long so had limited traffic. The floors were recent so not grotesquely ugly like the first place and some wicker furniture was included. I asked for ceiling fans and they were happy to oblige. If a landlord thinks you’ll be around for a while and are trustworthy, you can make a lot of requests when you move in. Some people like wind blowing in their faces, like being in front of a small fan. I far prefer those big ceiling fans since they provide a lot of air movement without making you feel you’re in a wind tunnel, besides being a lot quieter, especially at low speed.

Just a couple of months ago I was offered an apartment next door to that one for $120 month so rents haven’t changed all that much if you’re dealing with Khmer prices. If you are new to the scene, thus not aware of true rent levels, and dealing with a landlord who knows how to relate to expats, you’ll be asked to pay a lot more.

The only deficiency of the place was the tiny kitchen area. Even in newer apartments, kitchens are often designed almost as an afterthought. I was not into cooking at the time - my food preparation limited to tuna sandwiches and such - so that wasn’t a problem for me. Khmers will prepare meals squatting down in the living room so adequate kitchen space generally isn’t important to them. They also have a strange habit of locating their refrigerators in their living rooms, why that is, I really can’t fathom.

That place worked out well for two years but when I returned from my annual trek the second year, I settled in to listen to the BBC in the early evening and had to turn the volume way up to hear it, thus the one drawback to natural ventilation: sounds can enter as well as air. Traffic noise was only a small part of it. Mostly it was screeching kids and boisterous adults having a good time along with multiple blaring TV’s and stereos.

Over the two years I’d been in the apartment I’d visited people who lived in top floor apartments that were half outdoors so included lots of space for plants and also some that were in quiet places, so it felt like time to move again. I mentioned my quest for one of those quiet airy places to a friend and he said there was one exactly to my wishes next door to him. It was perfect: second floor, big outdoor spaces in front and back which eventually accommodated about eighty potted plants and end of an alley so very quiet as you might expect. It also had no taller buildings around it so offered distant views and even fireworks from the river. They got me a small fridge, ceiling fans and hot water, all for $140 month.

It had an unusual set up for the toilet and shower facilities as they were in separate rooms. That I really appreciated since I always have fungus growing between my toes here in the tropics and having to walk in shower water every time I have to pee is not good for the toe rot challenge.

They also cut a window into the bedroom, which had been set up for air-conditioning and thus had only one small window on one side, for cross-ventilation. With no other buildings around, except on the south side, the air could move right through without hindrance and it could get very breezy. Cross ventilation doesn’t make a space cooler than ambient temperature, it only provides for no-cost air movement and keeps the place from being a heat sink. My friend didn’t stay long in his place next door to mine since the length of his apartment faced south, was open to the sun and was very hot. Mine, looking north, was much more comfortable. Thus I learned preferred orientation from being in that apartment. It’s best to face north since the sun comes from the south about eight months a year and the remaining four months – May to August - are often cloudy. Next best is facing east because the morning sun is much cooler than afternoon sun. Orientation makes a very big difference for comfort when not air-conditioned and in electric cost when it is artificially cooled.

I did get a shock from my first electric bill: $25. The previous apartment I’d paid only four bucks a month. I am very frugal with power, always turning off lights, fans and computer when not using them and don’t use fans much, preferring to sweat except in extreme heat. I didn’t believe the small fridge and hot water could add that much. Oddly enough there was a meter in the apartment as well as the one the electric company read, and I checked and saw I wasn’t using anywhere near that much juice. Meanwhile a friend who lived next door who was a snowbird and had just returned from Canada had a bill for $80 when his bill normally came in around $35. Thinking something underhanded might be going on he hired an electrician to trace the wiring and sure enough someone had tapped into our lines, and subsequently my bill went down to $9.

Which brings up electric bills. I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve never been overcharged on electricity in the four apartments I’ve rented in the city. I’ve always paid the exact bill. Many landlords will pad the bill and charge you 1100 or 1200 riels per kilowatt hour when they pay only 650 riels. One friend got his first bill in a new apartment that was twice what he’d ever paid before so he balked. He asked to see the bill, the landlord said, No bill, just pay. He didn’t stay there long. Everybody in Phnom Penh pays the same 650 riel rate, if you’re being charged more you’re getting ripped off. Actually, the rate is less for people who use very small amounts of power.

After 5 1/2 half years there I was encountering financial problems and by then it was used only as a second home, my primary home being in Kampot. In addition, there was construction happening all around and my outdoor space which had previously been in the eyes of only a few neighbors was now in view of dozens of windows with more happening all the time. It was, in other words, becoming like a fishbowl. I reluctantly gave it up and for a couple of months I bounced around between hotel rooms and a place a friend offered me on a temporary basis. I was still spending 8 or 10 days a month in the capital and couldn’t stand not having my own space, so once again started looking for an apartment. BTW, that apartment is now renting for $200, so not that big a change after 5 1/2 years.

Sometimes, when looking for a place, you’ll see a for rent sign, but that generally means it’s located on a busy street. Otherwise unless you’re really good at the language, you’re going to need local help. The exceptions being if a friend knows of a vacancy or if you’ve got lots of money to spend for a place that caters to westerners. If you don’t have a Khmer friend to help, then one of your best bets is a moto or tuk-tuk driver. They know lots of people and get around a lot. If you don’t know one as a friend, then you go to the general area you want to live in and ask one of the guys who works the area.

My moto friend first took me to a smallish but acceptable space except for being a fishbowl apartment with lots of people around who would always know your business. For that they were asking $100 month, which was a bit much for what you were getting. The second one he showed me, also for a hundred bucks, was a small apartment in back of the owner’s house. That required going through a gate and passing by two noisy little dogs as well as the owner’s possibly prying eyes. Not for me.

The third one turned out to be perfect. It too was $100 but a full flat. It’s third floor but I look at it as good exercise. It’s not a pretty place having one of those ugly old red and white checked floors. The kitchen is small and not easy to use and it was barely furnished: two plastic chairs, a tiny fridge and a sleeping pad which is just thick enough to make sleeping tolerable but not thick enough to not feel my bones touching the hard floor. As soon as I have the dough, I’ll buy a cheap bed and a thin pad to augment the one I already have. Anyway, for my needs, cheap is better than nice.

The best thing is the location and access. It’s on Street 13 right close to the museum so it’s near everything I need to do in the city and the access is perfect.  In the previous apartment the motodops and everybody who was interested was aware of every visitor to my place. You don’t realize what’s happening when you don’t know the language, but local men frequently bad mouth girls visiting foreigners, especially when they are old farts like myself. Khmers are tolerant enough to not interfere in other’s lives but that doesn’t mean they don’t verbally harass the girls.

What makes access at the new place perfect is the small alley that serves my building also serves two other buildings. I just have to bring a visitor one time. After that, unless the locals that hang around the entrance are very astute and observant, they have no idea who’s coming to my place. Also being on the top floor, it once had a big outdoor space facing the street. That was later filled in, thus there’s a lot more privacy than if it’d remained outdoor space. Today, that’s better for my needs. The motodop friend said, Offer him ninety, but it was so right for me and cheap enough at $100 that I didn’t have the heart to bargain.

Good luck apartment hunting.

Buses for Phnom Penh

The government recently announced it was signing a contract with a French engineering firm to design a bus system for the capital. The city is the only one of its size I’m aware of that doesn’t have a public transit system. This is especially problematical as Phnom Penh is becoming denser with high-rise buildings sprouting everywhere. The current non-system, relying totally on private carriers - motorbikes, tuk-tuks and taxis - is a lot more doable in a low-rise, medium density city than in a city with modern skyscraper-type ambitions.

Public transit will not be a cure-all for the capital’s traffic problems but it would certainly help. Motorbikes are small but they still take up more street space than the equivalent number of people traveling on a bus. Even if each motodop is carrying an average of two people, that’s 30 motorbikes to equal the capacity of a 60 passenger bus.

Buses have other advantages besides traffic relief. They’re immeasurably safer than riding on motorbikes and more comfortable; think about riding a moto in the rain or in the hot sun compared to a relatively comfortable seat on an air-con bus.

Phnom Penh did in fact have a bus system for a short six months back in 2001. It was an experimental system financed by Japan. Until just a few years ago you could still see the leftover bus stop signs and bus shelters along Monivong and Norodom. That system was before my time and I’ve heard conflicting reports of its acceptance by the population, but in general people were getting used to them and ridership was slowly increasing. It was ended because the government didn’t want to continue the necessary subsidies. Big bus systems always seem to require infusions of public money. The government, knowing how inefficient and corrupt it’s capable of being, let the system die rather than get itself involved in such a big and expensive project.

Fare collections in American bus systems usually account for only about 1/3 of operating costs. Municipalities charge the remaining costs to the taxpayer because the alternative would be worse. There’d not only be the additional traffic to deal with absent a bus system but finding place to park all the extra cars would be difficult. Nobody needs to be encouraged to own a vehicle; with few exceptions it’s what everybody wants, so in Western countries where people have the means, governments go to great lengths to try to entice people away from their vehicles on to public transportation. In addition to massive subsidies, they advertise and even plead with their citizens to leave their cars at home and bus it.

You can’t really sustain a dense urban area where everybody has a vehicle, though that’s mitigated somewhat when most vehicles are motorbikes. Still, even in Phnom Penh where they are the primary form of transportation, parking is an important consideration. Where I taught English a few years back they had just built a new six story classroom facility. Two of those floors are devoted exclusively to motorbike parking, and that space is crowded with them. Small as they are, there is no small cost in accommodating them. And witness the masses of parked motorbikes in front of every popular restaurant or shop. Within a few years at present trends with increasing numbers of cars on the road, the city will be swamped.

The only thing that makes the situation somewhat tenable today is the widespread use of sidewalks for vehicle parking; it’d be very hard to accommodate them otherwise, though at the same time, lack of safe, comfortable pedestrian ways discourages walking and thus adds to motorbike use. A few years back a friend who was living in Saigon told me he was forced to take a motorbike to go only 100 or 200 meters because blocked sidewalks made it impossible to walk and traffic is so much denser there. I’ve heard they’ve since cleared the sidewalks for pedestrians. Another friend, a Khmer, who’d spent some time in Europe, really enjoyed walking there. She was all fired up about doing the same when she returned to Phnom Penh, but was quickly discouraged from walking in the capital because it’s so uncomfortable there. At any rate anything that encourages people to use alternate means of travel; that is, other than their own vehicles, makes it better for everyone.

Motodops and tuk-tuk drivers will howl in protest at a competing bus system but there’ll still be a big place for them in the transportation picture since they do have two distinct advantages over buses: they’re convenient and fast. Leave any building in the city and unless the motodops already know you and know you don’t require their services, you are besieged by drivers seeking to give you a ride. Contrast that with having to walk to the nearest bus stop and then wait till the bus comes. And further, in place of snaking very quickly through traffic on a motorbike, buses are lumbering and slow and they spend a lot of time stopping for passengers. Moreover, instead of getting you direct to your door on a moto, you have to walk to your destination when you get off. Going short distances you could probably make two round trips on a moto just in the time you have to wait for the bus, though if they really catch on there might be enough patronage to have buses every few minutes. Buses also have negatives in terms of being noisy and smoky, though that could be mitigated somewhat in the future with hybrid buses.

Where buses would really make a difference is in long trips for the city’s low income people. For you or I spending 6000 riels to go from the center of town to the airport on a moto is no big deal, for the majority of the city’s residents it’s a great burden and severely restricts their mobility, especially in terms of jobs. Contrast that cost with the ten cents or 400 riels cost of going that far in Bangkok on a non-air-con bus or the 40 cents or 1600 riels on an air-con bus. Unless time were of the essence many if not most Cambodians would opt for the bus. For instance, going from Kampot to Phnom Penh, the cost differential between taking a (relatively) comfortable air-con bus and an absurdly crowded and practically demeaning minibus is only about a dollar and yet lots of Khmers have no choice but to save the money and ride rough.

Many locals who can afford long moto trips, but maybe just barely, are strongly encouraged by the economics to get their own wheels since the cost of fuel for the same trip would be relatively very small. This then also adds to traffic and the need for parking.

I’ve always thought the jeepney system used in the Philippines would be ideal for Phnom Penh. It’s basically the same as the minibus or remorque system used in rural Cambodia, but for some reason stops at the city’s outskirts. For those unfamiliar with jeepneys the first ones were elongated military jeeps left over after the second world war. Now they are manufactured in country. Fares are equivalent to 500 or 600 riels. As far as I could tell they are all privately owned and operated. They have bench seats on the sides which about 18 to 20 people can squeeze into. They can also pull out stools for passengers to sit on between the rows and, like in Cambodia, there’s always room for people to hang off the back or sit on top, though sitting on top is mostly found in the countryside, I don’t ever remember seeing topside riders in the cities.

While you do see big buses in Manila, jeepneys are still the major transportation mode. If I remember correctly they have designated places to stop, but they will also pick up anybody who waves them down. On a major thoroughfare there’ll be several lines operating to different destinations and they pretty much keep to designated routes. For instance, if the same concept were applied to Phnom Penh there might be three or four routes operating on a street like Norodom. If you were heading south from Wat Phnom there’d be one route heading east over the Monivong bridge, one going south to Tahkmau, another to Russian Market, etc. If you were going a short distance you could take the first one that came along, otherwise you’d have to wait till the right jeepney came by for the further destination.

I doubt very much if the French engineering firm will consider the jeepney/ minibus option. It’d probably never cross their minds, at least in part because it would never be a viable option in their own country because of the high cost of labor. However, in Cambodia, as in the Philippines, a minibus owner/operator working the city streets could easily earn a basic living - if moto and tuk-tuk drivers can earn their keep, minibus drivers certainly could also.

In addition, minibuses are more flexible as in the above example of jeepneys operating on a single street going to several destinations. A big bus system, especially in the beginning, is likely to have limited routes. For instance, the bus on Norodom will not likely branch out to different destinations, which means many riders will need to take more than one bus. And since transfer systems can get quite complicated, they’ll probably wind up paying multiple fares, all of which will discourage ridership. Considering the inherent disadvantages to the individual in taking the bus and the concurrent greater benefit to the society as a whole, the authorities have to do everything they can think of to get the people to use them.

In contrast to Asian cities, American cities tend to have well defined downtowns which allows for relatively more efficient transit systems since most bus lines converge in a central place, meaning most riders need only one bus to their destinations. When people do need to take more than one bus, having bus lines converge facilitates transfers. In Phnom Penh, downtown type activities are widely spread over the city, still it would help to have a centrally located bus station where a lot of bus lines, if not all or most, come together.

The capital’s other major transportation deficiency is the lack of a modern centrally located overland bus terminal that would be used by all the bus lines. The present haphazard system works but a single terminal would be a lot more convenient for riders. Now when you take an overland bus you have to know which company you want to use and their schedule. The experience of taking a bus from Kuala Lumpur’s central bus station provides a good example. First, it’s easy to find the terminal compared to Phnom Penh where bus stations are scattered all over town. Then you walk in and unless you really prefer one company over the others and know its schedules, you take the next available bus. With all the buses converging in a single station, for most routes you’d never have to wait long till the next bus leaves. Then you have all the different companies’ ticket windows lined up, making for intense competition. As I remember it, when a bus about to leave had empty seats, the ticket sellers would call out how soon their bus was to depart and offer discounts to use it. Finally, with a modern terminal all overland buses, with their attendant noise and pollution, would congregate off the street and also not increase congestion.

The ideal location for an overland bus terminal would be adjacent to the train station, that way transfers between the two would be facilitated. (There are no passenger trains now, but it won’t be long as the tracks between Sihanoukville and the capital are almost finished) For instance, you’ve just arrived on the train from Kampot headed for Kratie; you get off the train and walk over to the bus terminal and catch the next bus to your destination. In the present scattered system, you get off the train and then take a moto or such to your choice of several bus companies and hope your timing is good. Or you get off the train and head to the only bus company you’re familiar with even though you know the schedule and know you’ll have to wait a long time. With all the buses in the same terminal, there might be another company with a bus leaving in a few minutes. To top it off, for obvious reasons, a transit station where local buses meet should also be located close by.

In Portland, Oregon, my home away from home in America, trains, intercity buses and local buses all converge in a small area at the edge of downtown. The long distance bus station was previously located in the heart of downtown, but was moved to the transit center because the land was considered too valuable for a bus terminal and the noise, pollution and congestion the buses caused was a detriment to the ambiance of the area.

I wouldn’t expect Phnom Penh’s leaders to act on a suggestion like this even if they understood its value because it’d be way too complicated to implement and very expensive in terms of securing the necessary land. It wasn’t that long ago that there weren’t hardly any overland buses in the country because the roads were too bad. Very soon, with the country constantly growing in wealth and tourism expanding, the present non-system will become increasingly dysfunctional.

The municipality made a proposal/plan a few years back to relocate the overland bus terminals to the edge of town believing that would lessen traffic whereas the exact opposite would be true. Presently many people live close to one of the bus terminals, by locating them in the outskirts, nearly everybody would need local transportation to get there thus adding to traffic, not lessening it, not to mention forcing most people to pay the additional cost of the long moto or tuk-tuk ride to the bus terminal.

Anyway, any bus system for the city is progress.