I found Phnom Penh depressing. A quivering shell of fine cuisine and alcohol not managing to cover the inner misery of poverty, decay and sex trade.

Right from arrival we were greeted by huge masses of trash rotting away in the streets. There had been a trash pickers’ strike. It had finished but trash still heaped in the streets filling our nostrils with a “musky” smell.

We arrived at our guesthouse. Five flights of stairs, no elevator. Our room has a window. On the street so we can hear everything. Our room looks like an old Eastern European hospital room. Unwashed walls, tiles on the floor, the room as big as the bed. It had 8/10 on booking.

We need to get out. We start walking – there’s glamour everywhere, fancy restaurants, cosy cafes and rowdy bars. We even spotted a Montagut Store. The obvious expat residences are protected with barb wire. In the empty spaces beggars, with and without hands,
peddlers of every thing and decaying buildings. I thought one of them had just burned but it turned out it was just dirty. On top of this the riverside is heaving with summarily dressed young women hanging out in front of aptly named bars: Candy, Sugar Bar, Butterfly Ladies. Here and there a middle aged westerner is enjoying the company of two or three such young women. I need to get away, but our hospital room does not sound to appealing. We’re trapped.

Throughout the next days these impressions would only strengthen. Phnom Penh is schizophrenic. The rich, expats, westerners and local elite live on their own world of lattes, burgers and beer by the jug. They step around the misery hiding in their oversized american cars, in their tuktuks, in their drunkenness and hangovers, in the comfort of a cheap laugh. At least the partying youngsters are sincere, they are here to get drunk and laid. The rest… Well, they have the NGOs.

Some good though. There are some seriously tasty restaurants. The S21 prison and the Killing Fields are touching, incomprehensible, shocking (why do people take pictures here??). The royal palace is impressive. The locals are usually friendly. The bubble tea and the ice cream is great. Hard to enjoy all of this fully when you see the city as I did.