It is worth reading.The English teachers shagging 14 year olds is a disturbing 10% of the book.The rest is a good insight into Cambodia,NATO.Hun Sen and expats in the 90’s.
Off the rails in Phnom Penh
I wasn't here then but the end of that decade was very similar to what was in the book, which described events in 1997. The only things I didn't see then were AK47s being sold at the market and the sealed packs of ready-rolled spliffs.
Not all the persons described were composite characters
Adam shrugged. "Phnom Penh has a shocking reputation because people enjoy convincing themselves that they are being shocked. But if you lived here for a while, you'd see that it isn't shocking at all. You just have different facilities for amusement here than in most places. In Europe, you rent a video or go to the pub when you're bored. Here, you buy some hash or visit a brothel."
"Do you live here?" I asked, still skeptical. Adam, a handsome young
German, didn't seem to fit the hollow-eyed, middle-aged Phnom Penh expat demographic.
https://www.salon.com/1999/06/22/cambodia_4/Donning our raincoats, Adam and I headed for Street 63, home to a number of brothels masquerading as massage parlors. As we walked, Adam told me about his experiences as an English teacher in Vietnam, his short stint in the French Foreign Legion (he was kicked out for bad eyesight) and his mild local notoriety from having appeared as a character in "Off the Rails in Phnom Penh," Amit Gilboa's hopelessly sensationalistic (but largely fact-based) 1998 book about sex, drugs and expats in Cambodia's capital.
I never understood the vitriol projected at Gilboa. If anything the hypocrisy I found was in the bar owners and old hands I met from '99 onwards, enthusiastic partakers in much of what he described.
Their main complaint was that the publicity generated by the book had spoiled things for them. Compare Anthony Bourdain's evaluation in A Cook's Tour (2000)
Reportage inevitably involves minor errors and misconstuctions, publication often requires exaggeration and even embellishment. But in essence these accounts convey what it was like.That night, we went out with some expats. Misha, a Bulgarian; Tim, a Brit; and Andy, an American, sat at a table with me, drinking warm beer over ice, comparing bullet wounds. ‘ ’97,’ said Misha, pointing at a puckered, shiny spot on his neck. ‘ ’93,’ said Andy, pulling back his shirt to expose an ugly recess in his chest.
Along the wall, twelve or thirteen girls sat silently on folding chairs, looking as enthusiastic as patients waiting for the dentist. One of them cuddled an infant.
‘Look at that little scrubber,’ said Andy, pointing out a sad moonfaced girl hunched over in her chair under a flickering fluorescent light. ‘She’s a chunky little beast, isn’t she?’ he said in English, then translated it into Khmer for the girl’s benefit.
We stopped at three or four bars, FCC, the Heart, a nightclub filled with underage whores. At the end of the night, I asked Tim how much to tip my moto driver, a kid who’d been hustling me around town on the back of his bike all night, waiting for me outside until I was ready, then taking me to the next place.
‘Give him three dollars,’ he said.
I gave him five. What the hell? Two extra dollars, right? He needed it more than I did.
‘What are you doing?’ complained Tim. ‘You’ll ruin it for everybody!’
- Lucky Lucan
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I went to Heart in 99-2000 and I don't remember any underage hookers. There were maybe a handful of hookers in their late 20s.We stopped at three or four bars, FCC, the Heart, a nightclub filled with underage whores.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Been there , done that ! No, really i have turned up during my first visit to PP in 2003 and stayed at the Asia Hotel near the central Market. The Taxi Driver in front had a white Camry (Lexus were not in fashion at the time) and asked me if i knew PP. No this is my first visit, sir. OK , i pick you up at 6pm and show you around..... and ended up at K11 immediately after. My good luck was that the UNICEF SUV blocked the entrance and police raided the place and arrested all the whities which at the time were all considered kiddie fiddlers. I ended up at the Riverside at the Riverside Bistro of German Scumbag Andy instead. I still don't know if this was any better.
In retrospect i miss the "Wild East" days of PP. I'm glad i was there to witness it including the hot nights without electricty, water in the bathroom etc. But it was cheap. A room at another, mostly used by italians was 7 USD / Night.
Cyclo Drivers literally lived in their Cyclos no matter if it rained or not.
With western influence came the straight jacket, including prejudice etc. A new Industry emerged: NGO with the Slogan: we came to help- and done well ! After the Chinese overtook Sihanoukville they ran out of funds, no more fatbelly whities to blaim.
In retrospect i miss the "Wild East" days of PP. I'm glad i was there to witness it including the hot nights without electricty, water in the bathroom etc. But it was cheap. A room at another, mostly used by italians was 7 USD / Night.
Cyclo Drivers literally lived in their Cyclos no matter if it rained or not.
With western influence came the straight jacket, including prejudice etc. A new Industry emerged: NGO with the Slogan: we came to help- and done well ! After the Chinese overtook Sihanoukville they ran out of funds, no more fatbelly whities to blaim.
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I always thought the "wild" days ended around the same time as the war - and a while before I ever got here.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Was he describing 3 separate places?Lucky Lucan wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:50 pmI went to Heart in 99-2000 and I don't remember any underage hookers. There were maybe a handful of hookers in their late 20s.We stopped at three or four bars, FCC, the Heart, a nightclub filled with underage whores.
1) FCC
2) Heart
3) some unnamed club with underage whores.
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach English."
Credit Jacked Camry & LTO
Credit Jacked Camry & LTO
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Yeah, looking back on it you are probably right.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
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I was here in those days and I read the book. I cannot attest to much he talks about other than the general feel. I have no idea who the people are in the book, I apparently didn't know anyone "cool"...I was too busy working and destroying my own personal life to be bothered!
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Why are the gods such vicious cunts?
Where is the god of tits and wine?
Why are the gods such vicious cunts?
Where is the god of tits and wine?
That was my reading. Probably Martinis, since he was obviously getting the tour.GMJS-440 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 8:24 pmWas he describing 3 separate places?Lucky Lucan wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:50 pmI went to Heart in 99-2000 and I don't remember any underage hookers. There were maybe a handful of hookers in their late 20s.We stopped at three or four bars, FCC, the Heart, a nightclub filled with underage whores.
1) FCC
2) Heart
3) some unnamed club with underage whores.
The Heart had plenty of teenage hookers at that time. There was a brothel next door which it later expanded into.
Shanghai and Sharkys had the same business model then: Khmer bar staff and mamasans running Viets, many under eighteen. They cleaned it all up around 2002. I think there's an interview with Big Mike in the Post where he says Phnom Penh changed at that point, with many more barang women in the demographic.
Similar to the changes in expat behaviour described in Gregor Muller's book Colonial Cambodia's 'Bad Frenchmen'.
Marie and Marie-Louise were among the first of a wave of brides and wives who relocated to Phnom Penh after 1884.
Key point about the white women's objection to miscegenation.Les divettes et les indigènes
Not all the European women arriving in Phnom Penh fit neatly into the mould of the new order. A decade later, one author declaimed that, in the colonies, there were only two categories of white women: “the spouses of officials, devoted and admirable wives . . . , and the divettes de café-concert, who, after failing first in Paris and later in the provinces, have with far too much success exported their repertoire.” Indeed, the arrival of respectable wives and brides was complemented by an influx of women who were, in the official view, of regrettably low class and dubious morality. A visit to their workplaces, Phnom Penh’s bars serving a white male clientele, provides insight into how shifts in the local sexual economy and the concern for racial purity were related to questions of class.
Anyone here in the 1880s ? Plus ça change...In the early days of the war, Governor Thomson received an anonymous letter, addressed to him by a Khmer inhabitant of Phnom Penh.... The letter is one of the rare testimonies to how the Europeans were regarded by the town’s indigenous inhabitants. The list leaves little doubt that indigenous views on the European community were not particularly flattering:
3. Funel, state attorney, being a judge, should not party that often at Larrieu Manan’s, businessman, he and Berto, head of the cadastre service, do not leave this establishment, keep the neighbors from sleeping, as high officials who give orders to the small people (aux petits) they are not supposed to to an unruly person like Larrieu.
4. Corraudy, employee of the FrancoKhmer tribunal, is an intimate friend of Larrieu’s, but every evening he plays baquan in the streets.
5. Bigouilla beats up Vietnamese and plays baquan with indigenous inhabitants, for a Frenchman that is equivalent to robbing France of its prestige.
6. The court clerk shoots his pistol, and he is a baquan player and a regular of the Café Larrieu, this is disgraceful for a magistrate, he has fired his revolver on a police agent. . . .
8. Cadet, brigadier of the police, is constantly having litigations; he plays the role of businessman and police officer. It is not in this manner that one can obtain the respect of the Cambodians. . . . Rosenthal, always drunk, keeps yelling the whole night with his harem of women. Teacher Pelletier has similarly [the habit] of getting drunk, he [never] sees the light of day.
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Maybe you did meet them types but your brain cells are destroyed as well?Felgerkarb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 9:05 pmI was here in those days and I read the book. I cannot attest to much he talks about other than the general feel. I have no idea who the people are in the book, I apparently didn't know anyone "cool"...I was too busy working and destroying my own personal life to be bothered!
pew, pew, pew, pew!
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That's not how I remember any of those places. As I said earlier, I can only remember very few hookers in Heart, it was just a small double shop front at the time and not many locals went inside. I never went to Shanghai till about 2005 so I don't know about there but Martinis and Sharkys seemed to have fairly mature women around, as in veterans rather than teenagers.MaxB wrote: ↑Tue Jun 15, 2021 8:56 am
That was my reading. Probably Martinis, since he was obviously getting the tour.
The Heart had plenty of teenage hookers at that time. There was a brothel next door which it later expanded into.
Shanghai and Sharkys had the same business model then: Khmer bar staff and mamasans running Viets, many under eighteen.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
They did the loop. Martinis until around 11pm then off to Sharkies and finish the night at the Walkabout. I guess Martinis paid the most to the mamasans to have the girls start there.Lucky Lucan wrote: ↑Tue Jun 15, 2021 10:39 amabout 2005 so I don't know about there but Martinis and Sharkys seemed to have fairly mature women around, as in veterans rather than teenagers.
"Goodness me! Now STD free..."
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As far as I can remember Martinis was dead before about midnight.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
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I got virtually abducted by a mature woman in Martinis in 2002.
"I don't care what the people are thinking, i ain't drunk i'm just drinking"
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