Some Thoughts on Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh was a mixed bag for me. It's a beautiful place with some amazing monuments and a relaxed pace of life. I imagine it to be like Bangkok 40 years ago. Most buildings are just 4 or 5 stories, punctuated only by the gilded spires of wats and monuments. There are leafy streets and friendly folks and it's easy to get around.

The city is definitely modernizing, and I'd bet if you were here 10 year's ago it would look remarkably more well-off. The car to motorbike ratio is much higher than in Vietnam. There's a lot of new development: the city's first true high-rises are under construction, and there's even a six-story Bangkok-style shopping center with everybody's favorite local Cambodian ice cream chain, Swenson's. When I was there, the mall was filled with Cambodians buying electronics, designer clothes, and DVDs.

On the other hand, it still seems like a very poor city. There are a lot of begging children and amputees. The city can feel dark and sinister at night. And when it rains (pretty much the whole time I've been here), the streets flood ankle-deep. And it stays that way for several hours afterward, so your choices are: walk through the filthy water, or stay put. Shopkeepers were paying naked street kids to wade in the street-sewers and pull trash out of the gutters by hand.

A planning story: Boeung Kek Lake, in the northwest of the city, is an ugly and polluted body of water. A development company plans to fill the lake and build a huge new development there; in fact, they've already begun pumping sand from the Mekong river bottom into the lake. The lake is not the most beautiful thing in the world, but it still seems like a unique part of the city, lined by floating houses and backpacker guesthouses. Not to mention it's a natural body of water, and I imagine filling the lake is not going to help the flooding problem. Phnom Penh could look no further than Hanoi and see what assets to that city the lakes are.

In addition, there's the small matter of the people who live in and around the lake. They have legal title to the land, and have sued to stop the development. However, the development company is owned by a family member of a high ranking member of the ruling political party. We'll see how that one turns out.