CAMBODIA'S FLYING CARPETS! Children worldwide know of flying carpets as a magical way to travel from one place to another, but in Cambodia, they have been a way of life for decades. Cambodia's flying carpets are very different from those found in fairy tales. For a start, they are a lot noisier. But they have long proved a convenient way for people to travel in a country with a dilapidated railway. Locals pay 50 cents and tourists a few dollars. There is no first-class, no seats and no sides. Passengers hop onto a bamboo platform, the size of a double bed, which sits on two sets of steel wheels. The driver attaches a small motor, connects a fan belt between the engine and the rear wheels and within minutes you are clattering along buckled tracks at 40 kmph, enjoying an uninterrupted view of rice fields, sugar palms and water buffalo. It is a scenic and unusual way for hardier tourists to see Cambodia, but for the locals, the flying carpet is a lifeline. There are dozens of these flying carpets or norries, running along stretches of the battered railway, but within a year they will be gone when rehabilitation projects begin working to improve the country's infrastructure which was devastated by years of war and neglect. Veteran norrie driver Prak Phea has been driving a stretch of track for 17 years. He has a wife and a child and earns a decent wage of 50 dollars a week. He has been assured a compensation of 250 dollars by the local government when the railway upgrade work commences. What is Prak Phea's next step then? "Perhaps I will plant rice - I have half an acre of land," he says, before adding hopefully, "Or perhaps I will get a job on the railway." With that he starts the engine and heads for home, his flying carpet skittering west along the rickety track.
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CAMBODIA'S FLYING CARPETS! Children worldwide know of flying carpets as a magical way to travel from one place to another, but in Cambodia, they have been a way of life for decades. Cambodia's flying carpets are very different from those found in fairy tales. For a start, they are a lot noisier. But they have long proved a convenient way for people to travel in a country with a dilapidated railway. Locals pay 50 cents and tourists a few dollars. There is no first-class, no seats and no sides. Passengers hop onto a bamboo platform, the size of a double bed, which sits on two sets of steel wheels. The driver attaches a small motor, connects a fan belt between the engine and the rear wheels and within minutes you are clattering along buckled tracks at 40 kmph, enjoying an uninterrupted view of rice fields, sugar palms and water buffalo. It is a scenic and unusual way for hardier tourists to see Cambodia, but for the locals, the flying carpet is a lifeline. There are dozens of these flying carpets or norries, running along stretches of the battered railway, but within a year they will be gone when rehabilitation projects begin working to improve the country's infrastructure which was devastated by years of war and neglect. Veteran norrie driver Prak Phea has been driving a stretch of track for 17 years. He has a wife and a child and earns a decent wage of 50 dollars a week. He has been assured a compensation of 250 dollars by the local government when the railway upgrade work commences. What is Prak Phea's next step then? "Perhaps I will plant rice - I have half an acre of land," he says, before adding hopefully, "Or perhaps I will get a job on the railway." With that he starts the engine and heads for home, his flying carpet skittering west along the rickety track.