I think you will love Kampot. Crazy expat central. Kep’s also very nice, I hear, but Sihanoukville rather put me off the beach…

NO, haven’t heard about the book. Thanks for the tip. I’ll have a look as I am always looking for good travel literature. It is a strange and strangely exciting country. The crazy travellers and all sorts of fringe dweller expats you meet there also endeared me to this country. The language, though, at least the phonetics is a bit challenging 🙂

Have you read A Dragon Apparent, by Norman Lewis? It’s pre-Khmer Rouge, and his observations on the gentleness of Cambodians, coming so soon before the genocide, are awe-inspiring. Stunning piece of travel writing, and one for the Kindle.

Yes, lots of pedophiles, armed robberies, muggings on the beach, burglaries. Now after the elections it seems people get really desperate here. Can’t blame them really. If I were a young Cambodian boy I’d probably also want me an iPhone after walking every day seeing all this luxury, Hun Sen’s palace in S’ville, foreigners buying large chunks of your home country to turn them into luxury resorts. Reminds me of Russia in the 90s a bit. There is gonna be a spike in gang violence here, I think. It’s already happening actually. In S’ville I heard lots of stories about muggings, burglaries, people walking armed in the streets, road rage incidents with shootings. and yet most Cambodians you meet have this very soft innocent presence about them. It’s uncanny.

The income disparity in Cambodia is horrific, isn’t it? Phenomenally corrupt country: Hun Sen is a disgustingly hypocritical individual, even by the standards of developing world dictators, and the children of the regime make the children of Chinese politicians look like models of restraint.

I have a feeling, also, that a lot of Cambodian sex tourism is paedophile-led: as Thailand and Vietnam tighten up, they’re moving into poorer regions.

So glad you discovered this post. I’d completely forgotten about it…