Traffic in Cambodia is truly amazing: As a newcomer you cannot help it but stare at the roads and ask yourself how all these people have managed to survive to this day! And then you realize that you, too, will sit on one of those motos while you are here and that you, too, will have to cross these streets. That's when it get's scary.

To give you a rough idea of how bad it is, picture the discussion we had on our first day in Cambodia. We had just arrived by boat, sat in a café and someone asked: “What side of the road are they driving on?” We honestly couldn’t figure it out. Some said “left” because they saw a few cars with steering wheels on the right side. But at the same time there were dozens of cars with steering wheels on the left and besides – after Myanmar, where everyone drives on the right even though there steering wheels are on the right, that explanation would have seemed to easy for me. So we stared a bit longer at the road, trying to make out a pattern. Even some Mandelbrot-like figure would have been welcome. After some time I suggested that maybe cars with the steering wheel on the right were allowed on the left and cars with their steering wheel on the left were allowed on the right side of the road. Believe me – it did not sound as unlikely at that time as it might seem from in front of you computer.

In the end we asked someone and found out that the answer actually is “on the right side” though there are a number of exceptions. My favorite is how they turn left into any street. Now, you and me would probably wait until there is an opening in the traffic and then head to the right side of the road ASAP. Not the Cambodians. They simply turn left into the left side of the road and slowly edge towards the middle and then the right side of the road. That this frequently means driving against the oncoming traffic for as far as a block or two, doesn’t seem to bother anyone.

The second think I noticed driving around Phnom Penh is that most of the moto drivers don’t seem to have the faintest clue where things are in Phnom Penh, which is a major headache. I mean, o.k., I understand that they might not find some obscure shop in some obscure street if you don’t have the address. But they frequently don’t even seem to know the main street. Consider what happened to me today: I had to go to Monivong Boulevard from Mao Tse Tung Boulevard, both being two major streets in Phnom Penh. But he didn’t seem to understand. So I showed him the map (I’ve learned to carry one with me all the time) and said: Look, we are here, so we drive to the roundabout at the next street corner, turn right and then it’s straight on until Monivong. He looked at me doubtfully and said “Oh, I don’t knooooow.” I mean, this is as if a New York taxi driver told you he doesn’t know Fifth Avenue! In the end I showed him the way there gesturing “right” and “straight” while sitting on the back :-).

P.s. from March 18^th: In the meantime I've come to the conclusion that there simply is no right or wrong side. There's only one side where the road is very bad and one where the road is simply horrible! Cambodia deserves its reputation as one of the countries with the wost roads in the world!