Spare A Dime, Seurrrgh!

So there’s this tuk-tuk driver as if from heaven sent.


Cambodians, mostly impoverished long before financial crises girdled the globe, were unlikely to escape the maelstrom.

Nor was your heartless (and fortunate) blogger. His mood of late has not been best served by the unsolicited overtures of Phnom Penh’s battalions of unemployed disguised as street vendors, beggars and – tuk-tuk drivers.

The last are least tolerable. Useful when you need them, they are insufferable when you don’t. When I first fetched up here eight years ago, they were stationed at 20-yard intervals on popular streets and ranked on certain corners. Their manner was reasonably jovial though with attuned ears you could hear a slight cockiness in ‘Sir’ as in ‘Tuk-tuk? Serr!’

Now they are serried two yards apart on every street and triple-ranked on every corner. The ‘Serr’ has morphed into a ‘Seurrr’ delivered with obsequious contempt.

They feign outrage if their solicitations meet with no response. They bellow after you and rock their hips if you ignore them. They turn a stroll from the comfort of your home to the sanctuary of a café into a journey to hell. They are the pits.

Yet –

I’m alright (for the moment) and they are not. But there is only so much bleeding a heart can do. There are more deserving cases for compassion than able-bodied tuk-tuk drivers.

Imagine my relief, then, when, wrapped in self-justifying indignation, I recently passed this paragon of courtesy on my way to breakfast.


Had the Minister of Tourism instigated a programme of tuk-tuk etiquette? Was this the start of a better life (for me)? Was this too good to be true?

Sadly, yes. Despite my encouraging words and promise of eternal patronage, he and his sign had vanished the next day with ne’er sight or sound of them since.

With dollars drying up and gold shooting up, I’ll swear those two-yard gaps are fast closing to one and ‘Seurrrgh’ is in the air on every breath.

***