Cambodia Stories

They banged on our windows, shouted at us and generally clambered over each other in an attempt to get our attention.

Given her age and the fact that her sales pitch initially consisted of smiling at me and waiting for a response, I came to the hasty conclusion that she probably didn’t speak any English.

I normally eschew large inanimate objects in favour of using the people of the countries I visit as my source of knowledge, culture and entertainment. The Khmers however, have a very special relationship with the Angkor ruins.

Suddenly the Blond Cambodian Baby jumps at me and clings to my legs as if drowning. He doesn't want to let me go. Blond Baby clings to my legs and and from under his blond hair looks at me with those huge, brown almond eyes asking a million questions in full multilingual silence. I so want to take him out of this slum.

Waking up in a backstreet guesthouse run by Cambodian gangsters isn’t as bad as you would expect.

The standard spiel at the check-in desk started with “Check out time 12 o’clock and leave your room key at reception.” It ended with, “you want marijuana? I send lady to your room?”

The cell phone vendor can't sell phone cards. He says: "I don't have the key for the drawer." – The boat man can't take us across the river. He says: "I have no gasoline." – My passport pictures are black. The photographer forgot to connect the flashes.

The 400 mile Thailand-to-Phnom Penh-by-road trip has become legendary among Southeast Asian travellers for being one of the most scam-infested journeys it’s possible to take.

As is so often the case in journalism, something which could only be described as astounding dropped into my lap.

I walk down the stairs to street level and fight my way half across the road towards the river promenade, when my waiter and one more restaurant clerk call me back from the pavement: "Sir, SIIIR – come back please." Many strollers and hawkers watch them calling me back like a bill dodger.

“Madam, you have between your legs one of the finest instruments known to mankind. Kindly do not scratch it.”

In the pitch-black Cambodian night, our tuktuk approaches a lit-up, airport-like structure. "Are the temples now like that", I ask Norah?

"And you know, Aunt Nahd, please give us just two years. We just need that time, Aunt Nahd, and then he will come back to you!" - Nahd presses End Call on her pre-war Nokia. This young lady on the line has stolen her husband, and now she says don't worry, he will come back later!

Just a short panopticum of delightful encounters with the inhabitants of Cambodia’s capital, the Paris of the East.

On their immaculate metallic blue Honda Wave 110 ccm, Srei (Mrs) Tooj and her husband do arrive not one minute late for my dinner invitation. "Tiger muy", orders her husband: one Tiger beer. But he forgot he is with his wife: "No need to drink beer, dear", she goes with a calm face and corrects his order: "Coca muy for my husband, and Coca muy tee-et for me."