A great article was written on 17 August by Hong Raksmey in the Phnom Penh Post about Bo Sophea and a colleague beginning their retro adventure on the ‘quaint rickshaws of yesteryear.’ Sophea had restored a few remorque-kong for journeys up to the Angkorian monuments.
The remorque-kong, or bicycle trolley, has been a unique part of Cambodian locomotion since the early twentieth century. Its economy of structure and ease of construction and repair, yet ability to transport an entire family or a week’s worth of shopping from the local wet market, made it a ubiquitous part of Cambodia’s roads and laneways.
Structurally the bicycle trolley probably descended from earlier Chinese rickshaws. In 1936, the pneumatic cyclo-pousse was introduced to Phnom Penh by a Frenchman, where a bicycle pushed, rather than pulled, the passenger’s carriage. They became popular across Asia. The remorque-kong, however, continued to be used alongside the cyclo-pousse, retaining the “cow-pulling cart” model but with mudguards and suspension added to the carriage. Check out this photograph below, from the École française d’Extrême-Orient’s photo archive, dated March 1948.
With the arrival of inexpensive and reliable Japanese motorbikes in the 1960s, the carriage became larger, and a canopy was added. This motorized version, the remorque-moto [tuk-tuk], is still a popular mode of transport in the kingdom.
In 1981, a year after the Vietnamese ousting of the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, National Geographic asked journalist Peter T. White and photographer David Alan Harvey to create the story “Kampuchea Wakens From a Nightmare.” Harvey’s ability to project the National Geographic style of high color, graphic strength, and “the moment” would have delighted the new republic’s image makers.
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