PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – If you think Pattaya is a city in transition, take a look at Cambodia’s capital. Twenty already completed condominiums and many more work-in-progress office tower blocks are changing the skyline in an apparently unending concrete revolution. Cement mixers and cranes don’t know the festive season has arrived as workers struggle 24/7 to complete a luxury, 500-room hotel before the Chinese investors arrive next month. Pop music tries to drown out the sound of drills.
Phnom Penh still has its fair share of western tourists as well as visa runners, mostly seeking the five year Destination Thailand Visa which is certainly the current favorite. At Harry’s bar on the Riverfront, where draught beer costs half the price in Pattaya, British digital nomad Kevin Noon complains, “I’m stuck here until after new year as the Thai embassy wanted more documents. His friend Michael suggests he should have gone to Laos. A bit late now.
Otherwise the talk is all about “dedollarization” or the increasing insistence on using the Cambodian riel when spending money. Traditionally Cambodia has paraded the US dollar as the currency of choice, but these days markets, restaurants and bars will willingly accept the US currency but give change in riel with a rate of exchange of 4,100 to the buck. Because you can’t change riel outside Cambodia, you’ll soon accumulate tens or hundreds of thousands in confusing paper money which you need to get rid of before leaving the country.
America is no longer the tops here. As Cambodia slips increasingly into the Chinese orbit, you can’t find CNN on the hotel’s TV menu choice. Not even the BBC, by the way, although Sky News seems to have survived, perhaps because so much airtime is taken up with repeat weather forecasts. Cambodia is an ex-colony of France, but no Cambodian under 80 can now speak French with any confidence. The language survives only in the definite article “Le” in many hotel names and, curiously, the word “Gendarmerie” printed on the jackets of a few traffic police.
Christmas and New Year see several principal roads at Riverside converted solely for pedestrian use at peak hours, with hundreds of thousands of two, three and four wheeled vehicles pushed unceremoniously onto minor roads already barely passable because of parked vehicles. This is surely the only city in the world where hotel security staff will hold your hand whilst you try to get a foothold on the pavement outside. Even the very posh casino might offer you a free drink to continue playing during those three-hour periods when any tortoise would win a race with motorized vehicles.
Phnom Penh’s sexy night life so far has been left alone. There are a cluster of streets lined with bars and short-skirted ladies reminiscent of Pattaya’s soi six. The strain on your wallet is less than in Pattaya assuming you are not drunk or naive. Transvestites are not numerous and very easy to spot as they invariably stand with both hands on their hips, pucker their lips and stick their tongue out. The city’s most popular gay bar Blue Chilli has now moved into the heterosexual district but concentrates on drag shows rather than pickups according to the doorman. However, he did want to know if I was a policeman. All in all, Phnom Penh is exhilarating for about a week. For longer, Up to You.
