Category Archives: Commentary
The Needle and the Damage Done
“So you wanna come over to my place for a treatment?” The towering, barefoot man with a bed sheet wrapped around his waist drawled (henceforth known as ‘The Shaman’). The Tiger Lady was perched on her wooden platform at the…
The Walkabout Joker Draw: Is It Worth Playing Yet?
Excitement is building once again for Friday’s Walkabout Joker Draw. The promotion is now in its 39th consecutive week without a winner. The jackpot is up to a healthy $7,433. That’s a lot of money. It would cover the rent…
Spit-Roast Cows Banned For ‘Inciting Violence’
One of the strangest stories of the week must surely be the government ban on spit-roasting cows in public. Apparently, pen-pushers in Phnom Penh think the sight of calf carcasses being slowly barbecued and then chopped up in full view…
In the Cambodian Clink
Imagine a place so filthy, infested and decrepit that the Khmer Rouge didn’t want to use it as one of their torture chambers, so used it instead as a pigpen. That place was T3 prison, one of the first pieces…
An Irishman, a Screwdriver and a Phnom Penh Rat
As you might expect in a sweltering tropical climate, creatures of all sorts abound here. The city center is a bit barren; it has plenty of trees but not much else as most ground is built on or paved and…
Phnom Penh Hotel Reviews: The Plantation
There’s only one problem with staying in the rooftop Jacuzzi suite at the Plantation (Phnom Penh’s newest urban retreat): It has spoiled me for travelling anywhere else for a while. It’s like the first time I upgraded to Business Class….
The Poor Are Losing Their Homes, But It’s OK, An Elephant Has Been Saved
Call me heartless, but I must admit I greeted the news this week that Cambodia’s most famous elephant had finally been retired not just with sympathy but with a huge amount of disbelief. It’s easy to become hard in a…
Land, Cops, the Rich and the Poor
The morning of Chinese New Year Day, on my way to the pharmacy, I happened up a street on which the owner of one of Cambodia’s controversial land development companies lives. The road was lined with cars and motorcycles and…
A Good Cop, a Wild Driver and a Weird Ride Home
Outside the minimart at 2am was a tuk-tuk driver; mid thirties, furious, waving his fists and gesticulating wildly as he glared at me as if to suggest; ”Barang – you are only scratching the surface of my righteous anger, so…
Cambodian Food: The Chef Hailed As A Genius By Raymond Blanc
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My nine-month quest to learn how to cook Cambodian food hasn’t been an easy one. There are only a few decent cookbooks on the subject, and even they’re filled with contradictions, making it even harder to get to the bottom…