Eleven random things I've learned that are useful in my daily life in Cambodia (with unrelated photos just to make this post more colorful)

1. When driving, it's legal to turn right on red (and left on red, and straight on red) but it's illegal to drive with your headlights on during the day.


2. Calling someone "talkative" translates into an insult.

3. An ice cube in your ashtray will keep the ashes from blowing all over the table.


4. Even though an establishment - including a health clinic - has posters on the wall extolling the virtues of hand-washing, it doesn't mean there will be a sink in the bathroom. (And if there is a sink, there will never be any soap or hot water or towels.)

5. When leaving your helmet sitting on your parked motorbike, make sure it isn't upside down or it will fill with rain, take days to dry, and smell like wet helmet for two weeks.


6. Just because there's a clock in the bank lobby, don't assume you will know the correct time. (Recently I visited a bank with a row of clocks that claimed it was 3:27 in Cambodia, 3:45 in New York, and 12:09 in Paris.)

Gotta do something to kill time while waiting for customers...

7. Don't be offended by anything. Examples:

• Being asked how much you pay for anything (and then being told you paid too much.) 
• Being told your tires need air because you are very fat. 
• Almost being run off the road by another driver. (Just exchange big smiles and move on.)
• Having your arm stroked and squeezed by random strangers while being told how white you are. (I like to blow their minds sometimes and remove my watch, showing them my untanned strap mark so they can see how white I really am.)
• Having a vendor quote a price that you know is twice what the locals pay. 
• Being asked to borrow money.

 

8. There are many kinds of policemen. In some circles, they are known as the "shit police" (the traffic police), the "fucking shit police" (any kind of police who fine you and pocket the money or charge you to investigate a crime), and the "tidy police" (who keep the peace, so to speak.) There are also the temple police, the commune police, and the tourist police, as well as others, I'm sure.

This would be the "police who take their kids to work."

9. If you want to know exactly how hot it is so you can whine to your friends back home complete with objective data, bring your own thermometer as there are none to be seen here. Nor are there any weather reports, unless you go online.

10. Don't fret about buying meat in the market that is hanging around in 95-degree heat. (It's only been dead a couple of hours, so there hasn't been enough time for deadly bacteria to grow.)

11. Really, never assume anything.

• Never assume that the neighbors won't set up a wedding tent in the middle of your street requiring you to drive the long way around or straight through their party. 
• Never assume that someone will call before coming to visit, that they will knock when they arrive, or that they will be able to interpret your unspoken signals that it's time to go home.
• Never assume that germ theory is a universally accepted concept. For example, if you get conjunctivitis, you may be told that it's probably because you looked at two dogs having sex.
• Especially never assume that there's no logic behind the way things are done here - just because the logic is not obvious to you doesn't mean there isn't a kind of logic involved that you don't understand yet.

Wedding tent in the middle of our lane.