Michael Batson

To reach Silk Island from Phnom Penh you head over the Japanese Bridge on National Route Six. Once over the bridge you arrive onto a sliver of land squeezed between the Tonle Sap, the river that flows from the great lake in Cambodia’s north, and the Mekong, the river that comes from China.The Japanese “Friendship” Bridge isn’t the white-knuckle ride it once was. The bridge takes you to Chroy Changvar, the peninsula formed as part of the Quatre Bras, the riverine “four arms” at the centre of Phnom Penh. Traffic was a maelstrom, four wheels went on the road, two wheels dominated the footpath. Pedestrians were largely absent and likely just as well. Few people walk in Cambodia unless you’re either very poor, or don’t have far to go. The bridge has been joined by a more recent Chinese construction built in record time, which now performs this feat for those heading into the city, while the older Japanese construct takes you away, to Silk Island and further Batdambang and on towards Thailand. The bridges perfectly illustrate the changing of the guard of foreign influence with the “Chinarising” of Cambodia. The West is so yesterday.Maintenance on the bridge, once damaged in the civil war, has been neglected over the years and is now well overdue. It’s an accident waiting to happen, much like traffic in the kingdom. Urban myth has it that to “bless” the new Chinese built construction, a garment worker was kidnapped and sacrificed by being thrown into the Mekong.The