Phnom Penh: "Paris of the East" or Brazen Wild West?

I've said it a hundred times, I'll say it a hundred more: I love cities. Whatever shape and size, I love the energy, the hustle and bustle, the edge of the city. Not to mention -- and I recognize I'm basically inviting disagreement in saying this -- I feel cities are increasingly the better representation of what daily life is like in most places. But one of the most notable exceptions to this is Cambodia, where around 70% of Cambodians continue to live in the countryside and in small towns and villages. In this case, Phnom Penh isn't what Cambodia is really like. It's an anomaly, and a miscreant anomaly at that. It genuinely feels like a big Wild West town, a frontier city.

Sure, there are the hallmarks of most big cities and capitals in "developing countries": trash strewn streets, homelessness and begging, chaotic and seemingly lawless traffic, shitty public services, open air street markets every few blocks, mothers bathing their children in a public park, gated and guarded neighbourhoods with expensive new apartment complexes, a Rolls Royce dealership, KFCs. Extreme divisions between the rich and poor. Phnom Penh has all of that and more in ample portions. But it has a very different quality.

In 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh and forcibly evacuated the entire city to the countryside into agrarian communes. The city, to the best of my knowledge, laid dormant and
basically empty for the better part of five years until 1979. Prior to their barbarous conquest, Phnom Penh was said to be one of the most beautiful cities in Southeast Asia, but this beauty and French-tinged sophistication seemed all but lost in the interim. Walking around Phnom Penh today, 35 years later, French colonial buildings are all over, but they are mostly falling apart and sandwiched between hurry-hurry-put-it-up apartment blocks, derelict and disused buildings often squatted, or commercial buildings built within the last five to ten years.

Foreigners come here for two or three things, and only those two or three things. One, tourists come for the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge south of the city, the torture base of Toul Sleng (or S21), and maybe the royal Grand Palace. Other than that, there "isn't much to see". Two, foreigners come for work. Embassy workers, foreign investors, small businesses. And three, most interesting and certainly most depraved of all, the sex tourist. You can see them mostly along the riverside, middle-aged white men sitting alone drinking beer at 10 AM. There are entire streets of bars that only faintly disguise their actual purpose of prostitution. It's pretty in the open, everyone knows what it's about. No secrets here.

I wandered into an abandoned French colonial building near Wat Phnom. The perimeter of the building had a high metal fence with one entry point on the corner, but people were hanging out in front and there seemed to be activity inside. Trees grew through the windows into the building, the roof had partially fallen in, faded yellow paint covering the building crumbled off with pieces of concrete. I've done it quite a few times now, but going into a place where poor squatters live and work is always delicate. You're never sure if you are welcome, you are never sure what might happen inside, and safety isn't really on the radar.

Inside, maybe three or four families occupied the ground floor of the building and seemed to be operating a car wash business. Kids played in the dirt with car parts, men washed and detailed $40 000 USD vehicles. Everyone present was a bit suspicious when I walked in (see: sex tourism), but quickly they realized I just wanted to look around.

The building was three or four storeys tall, but the only floor in use was the ground floor. And for good reason, the staircase leading up to higher floors was literally falling off the walls. The ceilings were caving in, there was shit and piss and debris everywhere, and an army of bats that flew higher up each time I came to the next storey.

Outside, men and women that lived in the derelict building were making charcoal. This kind of work is some of the worst I have ever seen, especially in places like the Smokey Mountain slum in Manila, Philippines.

I saw this alley and it looked beautiful in the light. It was a Sunday, so tons of people were off work (or not?) and milling about with friends and family. A group of men sat in plastic chairs yelling at a TV showing kick-boxing and gambling small bills.

I was walking out of the alley when a man said, "Have a beer." If you have never been to Southeast Asia, understand that almost constantly people are sort of talking at you: want a tuk tuk, want some weed, want a girl, and so on. I took a few steps and turned around and looked at him. He was sitting with his friends, just drinking beers. He said he wanted to buy me a beer. I couldn't refuse his offer. They bought beer after beer and we talked in broken English. We shared fried cockroaches (or some such insect) and smoked cigarettes. For a moment I felt like I was part of their neighbourhood.

Phnom Penh refurbished the central market years ago, and it seems set as an example for this new Phnom Penh. Clean, fresh paint, well-organized.



I loved Phnom Penh, but I love most of these kinds of places. Rough around the edges, lived in, gritty, however you might describe them. There's personality here, the city has character. Spend more than a day in Phnom Penh, and you will spend more time here than most.