Paradoxical Phnom Penh

Posted: 12 May 2011 | 3:10 pm

Trying to cross the street in Phnom Penh Cambodia during rush hour is a bit similar to those Roadrunner cartoons that often end in catastrophe.

Never mind the speeding masses of motorbikes and tuk tuks it's the brand spanking new Lexus's and Range Rovers that pose a far greater danger.

My mind lapses into a possible obituary headline "American flattened like pancake in PP".

I've been in the city for less than 24 hours and the remarkable divide between rich and poor seems to be growing wider.

While the new Sofitel has opened and work on the massive riverside Sokha has resumed, laborers still ply the highways and byways with wooden carts.

Indochina's street side serenade never ceases to amaze how chaos blends into the noise, and somehow mimics that serenity of a momentary calm before the storm.

Looking across the mighty Mekong, a South Korean luxury condominium project has continued to languish in spite of vaunted interest with stratospheric selling prices.

Be it the profound question about what comes first, the chicken or egg, I've have no

idea.

In celebration of surviving a perilous street crossing, I duck into the corner caf at the FCC for a quick latte, amidst the rising storm.

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