A daily frustration

When it comes to traffic on the streets of Phnom Penh, there is too much to complain about.

Motorists encroach on the lane reserved for their fellows from opposite direction.

People use too much horn – and most often unnecessarily. It might sound like a nonsense complaint to some, but the noises that those car and motorcycle horns produce can be annoying.

People are not aware of the road signs and do not respect the priority signs or traffic lights. Sometimes, you will find yourself unable to move forward even when the traffic light for your direction turns green as those “bloody idiots” keep coming even when the traffic light for their direction turns red.

Then, there are motorcycles or tuk-tuks that cross the road in front of you at their will within too close a distance that you are forced to abruptly pedal your brake or you will hit them.

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Last but not least, there are some sons of a bitch who love to endanger the lives of other innocent road users with their risky motorcycle – or even car – stunts. I bet some of you may also have seen these.

Although my personal observations represent the minority of ill-behaved road users, the roads can never be safe and traffic jam free if these problems continue to be ignored and left unresolved. 

I believe that the solution starts from each individual road user. While traffic police and relevant authorities should do their job the best they can, road users should abide by the laws and drive responsibly.

Trying a habit change

On a floating hut along the Mekong River at Bakheng

September 15 was not my typical day-- It's the first attempt of mine to apply a change in the way I kill my weekend free time.

Normally, my weekend free time - when I don't have any freelance work - is spent on meeting friends or "Good Samaritan" brothers which, most often, lead to some sort of party.

The party usually involves with drinking. It starts with a lighter first round but it gets heavier in second - or even third - round(s) and, almost always, I end up being drunk.

This time, however, I was determined to kill my weekend free time in a different way. Instead of accepting a call for a party somewhere in the outskirt area, I drove some 10 kilometers from the heart of Phnom Penh to my cousin’s house. It was a visit with a purpose – fishing.

When I arrived at his house, my cousin – knowing beforehand that I would visit him - was already prepared with two fishing rods and a small plastic bag of bait.

Meeting new friends with a difference

A man enjoys fishing with his son (not pictured) on Saturday, Sept 15.

We walked about a hundred meters from his home to the river. There, there were three floating wooden huts roofed with corrugated sheets of iron.

On one of the huts, two people were fishing – a father and a son. However, they did not look like career fishermen to me. In fact, according to my cousin, they often came to fish here – especially on weekends.

By the time I arrived, at around 2:45pm, they caught roughly 3 kilograms of fish.
The father – in his mid-40s – seemed to enjoy the fishing and on many occasions he smilingly talked to his son – in his early-20s, apparently.

According to my cousin, the man has only one son and no daughter, and his family is considered by the neighbors as wealthy. What impressed me was the fact that the son appeared to enjoy sharing his father’s fishing hobby while many of other youth at his age tend to spend their weekend hanging out with friends, boyfriends or girlfriends – a habit that seemed to be trendy among children from rich urban families.

After all, they became my new fishing friends. I talked to them briefly about fishing, and then paid my attention to my fishing rod at a different hut.

My cousin and I spent nearly three hours, but it was an unlucky afternoon for us. We couldn’t catch a single fish. However, I enjoyed it until the rain came at around a quarter to six o’clock. We got back home empty-handed – no fish for dinner dishes. My cousin’s wife made dinner dishes with pork and chicken. And I had the pleasure to be their guest for the dinner.

Although it was a fruitless fishing day, my first try on changing the way to kill time was satisfactory. And I am hopeful that I could convince myself to stick to this hobby.