Author Archives: Lord Playboy
People Need Space
There isn’t all that much I miss about living in America, at least not enough to imagine wanting to be there on a permanent basis; I do, however get a heavy dose of supersize country in my annual summer trek…
Daytrips: Kirirom Revisited
The road unfurls like a grey ribbon on a green carpet. We pass through lush orchards and grassy fields. The thickly forested mountain ahead looms ever larger. We veer right and skirt the base of the mountain. Then we begin…
Things Can Only Get Wetter
We’ve now reached the dog days of this year’s hot season and the temperature has risen to its yearly zenith. Like a tidal rhythm the heat has roared and surged upwards for one last punishing blast prior to the arrival…
Swinging the Lead
The editor of this august e-zine telephones me in a state of some excitement from the city centre, where he had been handing out bars of soap to passing backpackers and some of the city?s scruffier motodop?s. . ”Playboy,” he…
Restaurant Review: Chi Cha’s
It’s a fact that in the UK, whilst Indian restaurants are to be found on every street corner they almost always have a certain sameness about them. Indian food is cooked for the western palette and is a vast continent…
Hips, Thongs, Midriffs and Stomach-ache
What a lovely spot of weather we have been enjoying over the past few weeks. The sun’s been out, the birds have been singing, and it is months and months until the relief and release of the rainy season. Are…
Cambodia Stories: The Knife, the Dummy, and the Little Cafe in Poipet
When my young Thai friend said she’d meet me in Cambodia for Khmer New Year, I promised to pick her up at Poipet. She had the impression that Cambodia was a ‘dangerous’ place, where they burn Thais on crosses made…
The Wealth Gap
It is important to remember that this is not a technical economics e-zine. We are not here discussing the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ and ‘ifs’ of Khmer economic development. On those subjects, more powerful, better informed and better fed people than…
Drunken Dances and Violent Games with Fetching Office Girls: The Khmer New Year Staff Party
When the management declared that we would all stop work at noon on the last day before the recent holiday to have a staff party, most of the foreign staff anticipated the cultural awkwardness to come and skipped out to…
The Khmer Armed Forces
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It is not really as if Cambodia needs much in the way of a standing army/navy/air force. But their have been several different stories and happenings recently that does make me wonder about the state of readiness of the Khmer…