Phnom Penh (Ah!) Travel Tips -- WATER FESTIVAL IN PHNOM PENH - November 2007

Water Festival Boat races - photo - TangChhin Sothy tangchhinsothy@yahoo.com The Water Festival brings joy to the youth who depict the new look of Cambodia - NR photo Water Festival crowds gather near Independence Monument. NR photo Families come from the provinces to enjoy the festivities - NR photo One of many entertainment stages at the Cambodian Water Festival in Phnom Penh - NR photo Medal winners from 2005 competition - NR photo Indoor Arena entrance at Olympic Stadium - NR photo

DJ Ken

National Radio Text Service - Saturday November 17, 2007

What To Do In Phnom Penh??? - Water Festival & World Cup Volleyball Tournament - Pedestrians BEWARE - Cambodia's Top 7 Stories on NR

PHNOM PENH HAPPENINGS

November will be a busy month in Phnom Penh where the Water Festival also known as Bon Om Tuk will be celebrated from November 23rd to Monday November 26th. During this period Cambodians flock to the city to celebrate and visit family and friends. Phnom Penh will be crowded.

The streets are closed off from Norodom Boulevard to the riverfront.

If you take transportation the riverside you will have to walk several blocks to reach the river walk street of Sisowath Quay.

There will be activities from the Independence Monument area of Hun Sen Park going in a northern direction to street 106. That is near Wat Phnom and the Post Office area.

There are plenty of vendors in the festival areas selling food and many restaurants will be open.

The fireworks show that is a part of the EARLY evening's entertainment menu begins normally at dusk.

They are most readily appreciated from a riverfront viewpoint.

Last year a number of restaurants and bars were open that have outdoor balcony seating.

Most notably they include the Pon Lok restaurant and the Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia (FCCC). Both have good food that is catered to foreigner's tastes as well as alcoholic beverages.

They are within a block of each other on the riverfront street of Sisowath Quay and Street 178. The FCCC is on the corner.

Be alert… the crowds are so thick at the riverfront it creates body-to-body contact and is a pickpockets dream environment. Keep your hands on your possessions.

Some of the downside is that banks are closed, heavy road traffic with people coming into town and many of the foreign owned business in the area closed and their owners leave town during this time citing that customers can't access their business due to the crowds and closed roads.

Colorfully lit floats parade in a circular motion on the Tonle Sap River. The floats are assembled by various Provinces and compete for a cash prize. Entertainment stages are set up in the parks.

For those that prefer not to watch boat races under the hot sun the festivities are also televised.

VOLLEYBALL WORD CUP

Volleyball is on the menu at Olympic Stadium's Indoor Arena beginning Saturday November 24th to Saturday December 1 when 2007 WOVD World Cup will take place.

World number Canada is scheduled to compete as well as Cambodia, Germany, India, Malaysia, Poland, Slovakia and Mongolia. Gerald Brouwers WOVD Sport Director and WOVD Competition Manager responded to the question why hold the event in Cambodia?

"There were several arguments why Competition Management supported the bid of Cambodia: first of all Cambodia has proven to be well structured and organized, having a real national competition, competent leaders, being geographically in the center of possible development of standing volleyball and last but not least the enormous enthusiasm showed by the Cambodia Standing Volleyball Management."

Brouwers also offered his opinion who he felt would win the tournament. "My top list consists of Canada, Germany, Czech Republic and Cambodia." FULL STORY - ADMISSION IS FREE

PEDESTRIAN BEWARE

Walking the streets of Phnom Penh is no easy task. Quite frankly IT IS DANGEROUS. The sidewalks are primarily used by businesses for auto parking or restaurants extending their business on the public sidewalks by placing chairs and tables to the extent that pedestrians must walk in to street to get through.

Once in the street you must look both ways as motorcycles and vehicles go the wrong way and on the wrong side of the street. If you're used to looking into the oncoming traffic take the time to look the opposite way for the wrong way driver.

If you're injured the medical facilities in Cambodia area nightmare and not recommended. Those that can afford it travel to Thailand or Vietnam for medical treatment.

If you're using a motor taxi for transport make sure that they are sober before getting on the bike. It is seldom that a motor-taxi driver takes the time to look before moving into another lane of traffic. Should you feel uncomfortable about your driver, get off and look for another. The life you save may be your own.

Make sure you hold your purse or bag IN FRONT OF YOU ON YOUR CHEST. A French girl recently died after an unsuccessful snatch and grab of her purse while she was a passenger on a motorcycle. She fell into traffic and was run over by an oncoming vehicle.

NR'S TOP CAMBODIAN STORIES

There has been a major shakeup in the interest of Cambodia's Top stories on out National Radio site. For years the Royal Palace has been rated in the overall NR Top 10 usually holding down the second or third position. This month it has fallen out of the Top 20.

Seven Cambodian stories made it to the Top 16 overall. Dr Beat Richner continues to dominate the majority of the charts but more interestingly there is a new player in the Top 10 and # 1 overall.

The rankings are as follows. The first number indicated is the ratings for Cambodian stories the second number is the ranking overall.

1. 1 - Our story on Digital Divide Data - Bridging the Digital Gap of Have and Have Nots, is one of the first Cambodian stories that we ever published. This story is mired in controversy as major search engines have violated the use of intellectual property and attached the interest in the story by misleading the public to a link to Washington University in the United States. (More below)

Special Note:

Racism is a subject that won't go away. A story Racist Radio that we wrote about the subject in 1998 continues to retain interest and keeps reentering the Top 20 over the years. We are including it on this list since the problem exists in Cambodia.

An English language publication in Cambodia suggested in its January 2007 issue for foreign club owners keep black people out of their establishment. In its June 2007 issue that same publication gave advice on purchasing narcotics.

INTERNET THEFT?

In researching the findings we have found that search engines Yahoo, Google and MSN are all guilty of misleading the public. They have linked our story information to other sites without our permission. Those sites include Thai Visa, Washington University in the USA and UNESCO.

We have tried to contact Yahoo regarding this matter but there was no response. For our story on Digital Divide Data titled Bridging The Digital Gap Yahoo linked our information to UNESCO and Washington University web sites as noted below.

Cambodia (PDF) 13 James Loving, "DDD - Bridging the Digital Gap of Have and Have. Notes," (by James Loving, National Radio Text Service, 8 April 8, ... www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ict/Metasurvey/CAMBODIA.PDF - 117k - View as html

The questions are:

1. Why would a company that is valued at billions of dollars employ dishonest practices?

2. Who is responsible for manipulating information that is misleading to the public?

3. Who is responsible at UNESCO in permitting the practice?

Yahoo used the same story to mislead the public to the Washington University (USA) web site as noted below:

Cambodia (PDF) 13 James Loving, "DDD - Bridging the Digital Gap of Have and Have. Notes," (by James Loving, National Radio Text Service, 8 April 8, ... www.com.washington.edu/ict4d/upload/2004052712430458_03760155.pdf - 117k - View as html WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Our Roman Wanderaugh columns have been linked to other web sites by all three search engines without our permission. The most flagrant violator is Thai Visa. We have contacted them in the past but they have ignored our request to take our stories off their site.

All three of the mentioned search engines have used our story information and linked it to Thai Visa without our permission. Thai Visa actually stole our story and posted it on their site. In the past they not only stole our Cambodia By Land & Sea story but also used our photo. Since that time the photo is not on our story on their site.

Google provides advertising for the site. The question is why would a company that is worth billions of dollars resort to supporting a web site that steals?

The information of our information page on the Google site also had the following endorsing going to the Thai Visa site. ©2007 Google - Google Home - Advertising Programs - Business Solutions - About Google FRONT PAGE WITH THAI VISA

MSN did the same. They listed incorrect information and linked our work to Thai Visa as noted below:

Thaivisa.com The latest updated Thai visa immigration news; work permit and residence permit in ... Friday, 15 December 2006 Cambodia visa trip "TRAVELING AROUND" by Roman Wanderaugh o www.thaivisa.com/344.0.html o ¡¤ 7/14/2007 o ¡¤ Cached page

Cambodia visa trip "TRAVELING AROUND" by Roman Wanderaugh "AN INEXPENSIVE TRIP from BANGKOK to CAMBODIA by LAND & SEA" If you're an adventurous traveler the trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia from ... o www.thaivisa.com/border-run/page_2.html o ¡¤ Cached page o +Show more results from www.thaivisa.com

MSN also listed the headline TRAVELING AROUND on the Cambodia Land & Sea story. It raises the question why was it necessary to make two listings on the same story to link to the Thai Visa site?

Roman Waderaugh and any other National Radio columns are only legally available on the Internet on National Radio. We DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION for any other web site to use our material including soliciting our photos to the public.

We negotiate directly with interested parties for use. We are published in print in five languages. We do not approve of Thai Visa using our material and all of the search engines misleading the public to other web sites using National Radio information.

Isn't a search engines job to lead the public to the information they seek? It is clearly stated on our National Radio web site:

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We are published in five languages, English, Thai, French, Russian and Khmer (Cambodian language). Any of our foreign language material is legally available ONLY on our National Radio site.

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