Propped up

Phnom Penh's building boom is nothing new - it's been going on for the last few years as this city gets more wealthy (let's gloss over the fact that the wealth is concentrated in a few people's hands).

This was a particularly intricate scaffolding structure I spotted today.

On a grander scale curiosity led me to the city's first huge mall, recently completed. It was quite staggering to walk around - I could have been anywhere in the world. The variety of eateries and shops was very large. Target customer is the growing Khmer middle class. I do wonder how many of the dollars spent in the mall will come from completely clean sources, and not be tied to corruption. I may sound harsh with that comment but the longer you live here the longer you realise how inextricably ingrained corruption is in every aspect of the economy, and therefore with the growing amounts of money some people have in their pockets.