Street food blues in the Kingdom’s capital
While street food vending is among Phnom Penh’s most visible cottage industries, proprietors are left in the legal dust as authorities demand unexplained “fines”.
Dy Poch, the operator of a mobile grilled meat stall in front of the White Building tenements on Sothearos Boulevard, would rather be farming rice.
While Poch can earn revenue of up to $75 per day, expenses eat up all but around $15, leaving his family with less than $2 dollars each to live on. Poch also said he must pay bribes to avoid being evicted, which he considered an inevitability.
