even price for everyone
I arrived in Phonom Penh late April have signed a contract to work part time as an adviser for Krama yoga cambodia, an NGO which helps vulnerable women and children through teachings of yoga in so many ways.
First, I was shocked to find out that everything is much more expensive if 1.you do not speak the language 2. If your color is different i.e fair skinned asian and or with caucasian look?
Although I am learning to just make sure I pay as the local people said I should I still get ripped off left and right at the flower market for example!
I am a certified Iyengar yoga teacher who teaches full time here at our Nataraj studios. Here we also have price for Khmer clients much lower that the foreign clients pay. I also do not find this a fair treatment.
I am hoping this will become a bit more even and fair for all very soon by way of insisting that my courses have same price for everyone!
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I found two ways to live with it, without getting annoyed.
1. Consider the lower price that Khmer pay a discount, they pay less than the normal price because they are poor.
2. Let a Khmer friend buy things, alone. I have a Khmer friend who buys things for me that are more than $10, she gets the Khmer price, I stay away because if they see the foreigner they will charge more anyway. So by letting a Khmer friend buy, you pay the same low price.
Just the way I cope with it.
thanks
Tala
If I remember correctly, foreigners get charged $20 a day at Angkor Wat, whereas locals get in for free. I can guarantee you that if locals were charged even $5 to enter, there would be very few local visitors there. I know many locals view the Angkor Wat as little more than a "pile of rocks," and the only reason that they give them any value at all is that many foreigners consider it a world wonder. Even in the absence of an entrance fee, there are relatively few locals visiting the temples.
As a dual citizen I don't have to deal with too much VISA costs and restrictions that other travelers encounter. What I do have to deal with are the goons at the airport who see "Cambodia" as my place of birth on my passport as a greenlight for a serious shakedown.Â
One time after an airport official discovered that I had two laptops in my carry-on, he had a couple of thugs escort me to a special room where I was interrogated by one of his superiors, another uniformed officer who appeared to hold some rank. He accused me of trying to smuggle into Cambodia commercial goods without paying the proper taxes on them. I explained to him that I needed both laptops (a Mac and PC) for my IT work, but he wouldn't hear of it. He insisted that I was breaking the law (that he apparently made on the fly) and threatened to have me arrested and hauled off to the infamous Prey Sar prison. To make the long story short, it turned out to be just another one of those good-cop/bad-cop deals where one guy would try to scare you senseless and another would come in and offer to "help" you out, for a price of course.Â
I would have happily paid ten times more than the Westerners paid in VISA fees to avoid such situation. To be sure, this happened many years ago and things have improved significantly at the airport, but I still sense a bit of fear and trepidation every time I go through the airport. Nowadays, I just hand my passport to the official with a folded $10 bill already inside to avoid trouble.
At any rate, Cambodia is a backward, third-world country, and it's not because the folks here espouse first-world values and mindsets. Otherwise, you would not be working at the NGO to help alleviate some of the sufferings that are very much the outgrowth of such mentality.
twinsguy20 wrote:Generally speaking , most of the foreigners in Cambodia have more money than locals
Look at the drivers and passengers in all the Lexuses and Landrovers, and you'll know that's at least partly untrue.
There are also many foreigners who can't afford a $500 apartment or a car, who pay their local taxes (probably more diligently than most locals do), and don't enjoy the benefit of all the various "Cambodia citizen discounts".
Let me also remind you of the strike at Caltex, last year I believe. When the union leader was asked the question why the Sokimex workers weren't striking as well, he said that the Caltex owner was a foreigner, and could therefore afford to pay more.
If the "Cambodia citizen discount" would largely befefit only the poor Cambodians, I would not complain about it with a word. However, those who are already super rich benefit the most, and that irritates me.
Still there's nothing we can do about it.
Ps. Says I'm a uk man , but I'm all a USA citizen ,
I just happen to have downloaded the digital files of the Islamic religion from the internet and perused the scriptures at my leisure. I am really impressed by its consistency.
In fact, my views are very well protected.
As you know, with all the shootouts and suicide bombings, the arrow of enforcement is rather pointing in your direction than the other way around. We have had San Bernardino and Orlando this year. Therefore, I think that it is more or less 2-0 for the religion. Furthermore, I somehow suspect that your gang will be subjected to additional enforcements in the not so-far-away future. Getting arsefucked is part of life for you now.
As you know, our beloved Micah "Cop Slayer" Xavier Johnson has just set the tone by organizing a long-overdue killing contest amongst the Dallas police force. It was an impressive fuck-fest. He managed to knock out 12 Satanic whores, of whom he terminally cluster-fucked 5. You can most likely expect copycats to imitate our beloved hero and martyr. Your gang had better be prepared to risk their lives and die for what they believe in, because either you fight and die, or else you just die.
Yes, they unceremoniously robot-bombed Mr. Johnson. This pretty much means that they will just kill you, no questions asked, if you shoot at them. Therefore, the islamic view that you should not even try to get out of this alive, but effectively choose to die, and take as many adversaries as you can with you, makes quite a bit of sense. It also makes the enemy feel more powerless. They cannot kill the person anymore, because he chose himself already to die. Furthermore, if there is no requirement to survive the standoff, it opens all kinds of possibilities that would not exist otherwise. Therefore, I think that Mr. Johnson would have made even a larger splash, if he had detonated powerful explosives by himself, and had taken his assailants with him.
In terms of justice, all these persons will be heard anyway on their Last Day. Therefore, we do not have to worry about the administration of justice, since it will be dispensed directly by the One God. Mr. Johnson does not have to worry about this. He did a great thing. He will certainly be given access to paradise, while the 5 Satanic whores that he has duly terminated, will simply be sent into the possession of their master Satan.
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