There was a brief lull in the rainy season as usual this past August. But the rains are back in full swing again. The Mekong and Tonlé Sap Rivers are swollen rich from the monsoons up north. The Tonlé Sap River, which meets the Mekong towards the south of Phnom Penh in front of the Royal Palace, reversed directions about three or four times already, but volume and flow reversal has been weak due to dam building in China and Laos, north of Cambodia.
(In dry season flow in the Tonlé Sap River is southeast to the Mekong River. But with high volume on the Mekong during wet season it backs up the Tonlé Sap River, causing it to reverse its flow and fills the Tonlé Sap Lake in the northwest section of the country. This is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia and is Cambodia’s most prominent geographic feature.)
We have our very first skyscraper, prominent above in the first picture just to the right of Wat Phnom, against the dramatic rain clouds. The first two photos are of the Phnom Penh skyline from Maxine’s Bar (or “Snowy’s” to some) across the Japanese bridge, on the peninsula. The others are around our neighborhood (all were taken by Keith Kelly). Hard to capture lightning on film eh?