Tuks Tuks And Learning To Bite Your Tongue

A piece I wrote for Khmer 440...

I’ve got a Dutch expat friend who has a rather novel idea for dealing with what he calls the “scourge of tuk tuks in Cambodia”.

“They should do what they do in Tunisia!” he says. “Ban them from even talking to the tourists – they can only speak to you if you speak to them first. It’s brilliant!”

It seems pretty extreme to me, even by Muslim country standards. But you can’t help agreeing with the sentiment to some extent. Talk to most expats or tourists, and they’ll say that one of the main detractions of this beautiful country is the continual gauntlet of pestering tuk tuk drivers trying to make a fast buck...

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