cambodia.baronbonk.com: Phnom Penh: almost a brave new world

Phnom Penh: almost a brave new world
The older one gets, the more the subject of change takes on an importance. For some reason I am not so sure when the line ‘I remember when etc. etc.’ became a regular feature in my conversation. Of course when you can look back over thirty or forty years then change tends to be significant as the world rattles off on the express train to who knows where? But not many places change that significantly in less than a decade unless something really major happens. Eastern Europe changed before my eyes in the last decade of the last century. However it was the first year of the new millennium that I first went to Phnom Penh, less than a decade ago. Then it was poor town: few roads were paved, there were not many hotels, a handful of bars, and a desperate pack of child beggars on every street corner. The lack of street lighting was in many ways understandable as only stupid tourists ventured out at night. Now Phnom Penh is a buzzing place. Traffic jams are almost common place, the Lexus distributor must make a fortune, and most worker ants seem to have a motorbike. Back then motos and pedelos were the transport options so most night wanderers hired a car and driver. Now there is a modern day equivalent of the horse and carriage standing on each street corner: a motor bike towing something that looks like something a poor queen would take to parliament, a modern day landau. Maybe not the easiest transport to get into, especially if one is a larger specimen of the human race, but at least a more comfortable way of getting around as well as cheap and available. I was beginning to get used to them and working out the ingress and egress problems when on my last night I grabbed an insistent tuk tuk owner, yes like their Bangkok namesakes a little hassle is inevitable, and directed him to my hotel. Sadly about two thirds of the way home he ran out of fuel. To be fair he woke up a dozing fellow operator and so made sure I got home. A brave new world maybe but glitches exist on the way!
Phnom Penh is not hassle free but the few beggars and insistent tuk tuk drivers are easily driven off with a firm shake of the head and sitting in a cafe bar in the day time epi-centre of town, Sisowath Quay, does attract the odd vendor but to anybody who can put up with the constant hassle of the Golden Bar (Nana Hotel) this is a distraction rather than an irritant. And Sisowath Quay, as becomes this former colonial French town, is very much about cafe society - sitting and watching.
Bars and new bar clusters are springing up all over town but the old favourites remain. I did not visit Sharkeys this time but I am told all is well with this institution that was one of, if not the, pioneers of bars in Phnom Penh. I did pop into another founding member, the Heart (of Darkness). As I entered I was patted down for weapons in what seemed like an almost serious attempt to prevent another in-house gunfight which led to fatalities a couple of years ago. Inside the music boomed and the crowd was as cosmopolitan as ever. The Shanghai Bar just up the street (51 Street) was also doing good trade with an impressive gaggle of hostesses packing the bar area scrounging drinks at $1 above the normal price which was $1.50 - $2.00 for a beer or normal spirits. Opposite is the Black Cat and another few yards away is the Walkabout. These bars maintain this street as a major play area from dusk to dawn.
A new area, for me, was on 108 street where three bars Zapata, Voodoo, and Golden Vine as well as Art Cafe and the French bistro La Marmite sit in a line overlooking this attractive wide boulevard. We had a good sensible priced French meal at La Marmite and then enjoyed the company in the bars: a worthwhile spot to spend an evening.
Not far away is Wat Phnom and I stayed at the Casa Hotel a few yards away. The hotel did not inspire confidence when I entered but the room was large and everything worked. So in the end I had to conclude it was good low priced accommodation. I never ventured into the disco underneath, but I did have a few early drinks in the nearby Coyote Ugly bar. Although the girls were friendly enough I rather felt the double barrelled name might have been better parsed down to a single word, especially since there was no coyote!
Looking for somewhere new on my last night I tuk tuked over to the Huxleys Pub and Restaurant. The slogan of this new enterprise is brave new world; well you need to be brave if you open up a restaurant described as ‘international fine dining’ and do not have a wine list and a very limited menu of very ordinary pub food. Either that or dumb! I made my excuses and left. Then I trundled to the first-rate Bouganvillea Restaurant on Sisowath Quay where I had an admirable meal. What is more the excellent wine list was priced for consumption and not protectionism.
Another new operation is the Gym Sports Bar (Street 178) run by Randal from Adelaide. This is a true sports bar in that Randal controls a dozen televisions and has over five feeds so that most major sporting events are on live. I felt it was bit small for that many TVs; there really was a television wherever one looked. But I suppose that is what a sports bar is all about. The Gym Bar is clearly popular and easy enough to get to in one of those tuk tuks. I was forced into travelling on Air Asia as they offer the only flight at a civilised time. Mind you after the rigours of Suvarnabhumi airport a little discomfort in the air is nothing. I was amused to meet a man, on the way back, who had flown with Air Asia 21 times and only one flight, his flight to Phnom Penh, had been on time. The irony was that my flight out was an hour late and the flight back was an hour late, so my flying companion was almost unlucky to have broken his 100% lateness record on Air Asia. If you are prepared to put up with late flights then book early and PP is only a few hundred Baht away and the prices there are almost a pleasure after Bangkok. And another new plus is that there is an ATM, doleing out US dollars, on every major street.