An evening at Sisowath Quay

Sisowath Quay is the street running parallel to the Tonle river through the center of Phnom Penh. Due to this fact it is one of the tourist spots in the city and full of restaurants, boutiques, internet cafes... There's a lot of life during the day, but it really gets busy in late afternoon, when it also gets cooler. A lot of locals enjoy the atmosphere along the river, it's full of foodstalls, and traffic increases as many young people drive back and forth on their small motorbikes... on the opposite side of the street restaurants start to fill up, and the number of street vendors increases dramatically. A lot of children selling postcards and books, many amputees pushing small carts loaden with books or foodstuff, trying to make a living one way or the other. Quite a few people simply beg... older women and children mainly... Cambodia is still in the process of recovering from almost 30 years of war and genocide, despite the amount of cars it's one of the poorest countries in the world...
The business with tourists seems to be quite lucrative, for everyone, and is well "controlled". As I watched the street life, sitting in a small restaurant, I noticed two women strolling around seemingly without any objective. A lot of kids were passing, maybe 5, 7, 8 years old, all with baskets full of books and postcards, trying to make "business"with the tourists. After a while you are tired and would like to be left alone, but what can you do? Anyway, I quickly found out that the two women were sort of controlling the kids... I asked one of the waiters (he spoke good english) whether my observation was correct, and he confirmed... of course he knew what was going on in the streets. It was clear that the children would sell better because tourists would feel much more sorry for them than for some middle-aged women... that's the way it goes, not only in Cambodia, but here you see children of all ages everywhere, selling whatever they have to tourists. I don't know whether these kids go to school during the day, I think most of them do. Their work is just a normal part of their life and most parents are very aware that their childrens' only chance in this life if is a decent education...