Cambodia (Phnom Penh)

I've wrestled for a few weeks now as to what to write about my trip to Cambodia a month ago. I'll give it a run over the next few posts...

I had 5 days all up, planning to stay two days in both Phnom Penh and Siam Reap. After arriving, I decided that spending a whole day all up on a bus was a bit of a waste, so I stayed in Phnom Penh for the full five days and checked out the city and its surrounds.

As a whole, Cambodia is like no other place I have visited. The place has bloody struggled over the past half-century with unrest and subsequent extreme poverty. However, it's an interesting time to go as you can witness first-hand the developmental growing pains it's currently experiencing.

Partying hard

I reckon Cambodia (at the moment) is like an 18 year-old in his/her first year out of school. The teen is now free from the rules and routine of high school and home. They've never experienced such freedom, bright lights, sexual adventure and alcohol-fueled nights out on the town. They party hard. Maybe a bit too hard. They get themselves a little off track.

Cambodia is saying to itself at the moment "Holy shit, this freedom is amazing. I've got more money! Where do I start??".

Cambodia has essentially been given the opportunity for rebirth and in my view, will still take some time to shrug off its seedy undertones...natural in any semi-developed country. Corruption is rife, drugs are easy to attain and sex is seen as a commodity with unspeakable plunderous depths.

An honest conversation

In between a course at a terrifically fun local cooking school, I asked my 22 year-old cooking course instructor a few questions about Cambodian cuisine, regional varieties, what he liked to cook, eat etc. Briefly forgetting Cambodia's recent past, one question I stupidly asked was what he grew up cooking and eating.

His manner changed immediately.

With a visible sense of shame and lament, he told me he grew up in a poor rural family who were lucky to eat dog and rat to get by. And not just its meaty bits, but every conceivable part of their anatomy.

This bloke is only 22. When I was eating chicken nuggets at Belconnen McDonalds in '91, his family were still scraping for basic food and rice as his country struggled back into economic subsistence.

He was quick to tell me that those days are gone, and that his family is now able to afford pork and foul to supplement their rice staple.

The future

On the outside, there are indeed signs of solid development, with the presence of companies like PriceWaterhouse Coopers and a number of travel companies setting up more frequent tours...always a good sign. However, underlying corruption is still spoiling much opportunity for meaningful core development - Cambodia ranked last year 162nd out of 180 countries in Transparency International's yearly corruption survey.

I'll look with interest as to how Cambodia develops in the coming years.

Final thought

Some of my mates absolutely loved the country. I can't say I loved it - I just didn't feel safe. Walking along the Mekong in a busy street, I was offered weed, coke, heroin and a small bag of unclassified pills. It's just bloody dodgy. Definitely a place to be enjoyed by experienced travelers, not holiday makers.

However, I may well be wrong.

But I still believe that a nation's capital city is its flagship, and should boast the very best the nation has to offer. Case in point - Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin...what a marvel of modern aquatic engineering!

I WILL go back and I WILL check out more of the rural areas of the country, including Siam Reap. I feel I need to see more of the country before I fully write it off.


For those that have been, what did you think of the place????