Cambodia - free to be frivolous again

By GLYN MAY

The splendid colonial balconies of the Foreign Correspondents Club are awash with the usual goggle-eyed crowd as the sun sets over Cambodia's lusty capital.

Fiery French tourists, a few un-characteristically-scrubbed backpackers, and a sprinkling of suitably bored expats. No flak jackets bulging with film; not a notebook in sight.

Hacks, foreign or otherwise, are thin on the ground at Phnom Penh's favourite watering hole as the Kingdom of Cambodia emerges slowly from the horrors of Pol Pot and struggles to find stability among the political intrigues of a fragile, convoluted regime.

Today, Cambodia basks in the first real, albeit sometimes uneasy, peace it has seen for nearly three decades. Even the local English-language newspapers, the Phnom Penh Post and its competitor, the dreary Cambodian Daily, have space for frivolous items of suburban interest:

"Blond biker chic have big motorbike; need strong man to fix it. French photographers need not apply (a classified advertisement from the Post).

And Happy Herbs, the most famous pizza shop in Asia, advertises openly in the press: "Pizza, pasta and more." For about $10, provided you ask for "happy topping" (marijuana) you can leave Herbs with a grin guaranteed to last all night.

There are sobering news items, too: a Government decision to decriminalise and regulate prostitution as part of a legal package designed to address the huge problem of sexual trafficking in women and children; a story about a 10-year-old girl who bends one leg up behind her knee and straps it tightly with thick rubber bands to enhance her chances as a fake "amputee" beggar competing with genuine landmine victims; a man riding home from a late-night drinking session made a convenience stop near a grove of trees. When he returned, two men shot him dead with a K-59 handgun and escaped on his motorcycle.

Despite the reported prevalence of guns and lawlessness, visitors who avoid the deep countryside and exercise reasonable caution rarely, if ever, see this side of Cambodia.

For those with a hypnotic lure of frontier tourism, Phnom Penh is the new Mecca of South-east Asia, a city with pockets of surprising beauty and limitless business opportunities.

For all its (not all together fair) Wild West reputation, Phnom Penh has a socially acceptable soul of its own for foreigners consigned to the rigours of long-term residence in the Far East. There's a Bridge Club, a Rotary Club, rugby, Hash House Harriers and the obligatory Alcoholics Anonymous.

For the visitor, there are several elegant five-star hotels: the Hotel Le Royal, the Intercontinental and Sofitel Cambodian, where expats indulge themselves with fine dining and wine-tasting evenings for around $90 (cigar and port wine $20 extra). Down-scale there are scores of excellent hotels from $40 a night.

In Phnom Penh, perhaps the only necessary advice for tourists is to use taxis at night, to avoid displays of affluence, and to carry only small amounts of cash (US dollars).

So on this, our first evening in Phnom Penh, we've secured a prized perch at happy hour on the spacious third floor balcony of the Foreign Correspondents Club which, unlike many around the world, is open to anyone.

With a jug of excellent local Angkor beer, a claypot of noodle soup and a stunning vista from the building's premier position right on Sisowath Quay, Phnom Penh seems at peace with the world.

Below us, a busy, colourful boulevard with joggers, strolling families, young lovers, food vendors, the blinking lights of a score of restaurants and bars, and a line of flags fluttering in the breeze.

Beyond, the wide, fast-flowing Tonle Sap River which erupts into turbulent brown anger at Phnom Penh as it links with the mighty Mekong on its charge through Vietnam and into the South China Sea.

Behind us to the west, a scene to relax the soul: the graceful architecture of the National Museum with its spires and elegant roof line silhouetted against a darkening sky.

But tomorrow we begin the mandatory tourist circuit at the Tuol Sleng Museum, formerly a high school which was taken over by Pol Pot's security forces in 1975 and converted into one of most gruesome mass torture chambers of modern Asian times.

It was here, in four years, that nearly 20,000 men, women and children were held shackled in irons, mutilated, systematically tortured to death or, if they survived, taken to an extermination camp just outside the city at Choeung Ek - one of about 540 killing fields that took an estimated three million lives in Pol Pot's reign of terror between April 1975 and January 1979.

A $4 guided visit to Tuol Sleng is a depressing experience but, for the serious visitor, an essential ingredient of a visit to Cambodia.

On the brighter side there are great markets, the beautiful Royal Palace, and a pulsating night life.

Casenotes

GETTING THERE: Thai Airways International and Bangkok Airways have regular flights between Bangkok and Phnom Penh. Siem Reap Airways connects Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

TOUR: Travel Indochina has a four-day tour that includes Phnom Penh and Siem Reaps famed Angkor Wat from $1010. Contact: Escape Holidays in Auckland, ph (09) 309 4780.

MORE INFO: Try Travel Indochina, Lonely Planet's Cambodia (revised this year) is an excellent guidebook.