Outside the international airport of Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, right before the 2019 New Year holiday, Lin, a 28-year-old white-collar worker based in Beijing, was picked up by a local driver who could speak standard Putonghua.
“There were only five kilometers between the airport and the hotel, but the journey took over an hour because tuk-tuks are hustling around the city streets causing bad traffic jams,” Lin told the Global Times in a recent interview.
Dirty, messy and with bad infrastructure in the Cambodian capital is the first impression experienced by Lin. “About 10 minutes’ drive after leaving the airport, along a muddy road, with shabby wooden houses lining the street, it could be likened to a remote area in China,” Lin recalled.
