$7 to town from airpost in AC taxi.
PP is small. There's a main N-S street called Monivong, which runs parallel to the rivers. I stayed there in Big Luck Hotel, $20, AC, clean, girl-friendly, big bed, nice housemaids! Motorbike hire outside, $8/day for 250cc. Good way to get around as long as you remember the driving rules, which are, there are no driving rules.
My main landmarks are:
1. The river (east of city, runs N-S)
2. Central Market (new market), north east of city, off Monivong
3. Japanese Bridge (north)
4. Russian Market (south, west off Monivong)
Mongering zones I've visited are:
Martinis: favourite so far, plenty girls who look far better in life than in pics. Cheapest way to drink is to buy a bottle and leave it behind the bar, $25. Sareth (barman) is attentive. Cheap and OK food, but I prefer the steamed fish joints on Monivong. Everyone ends up here sometime. Now on #95 Street, South Monivong. Women cost $10 plus $1 or $20 plus $1 ST/LT. I had 2 last night for medium time (3am to 8am, $30 plus $2).
Sharkeys: good hangout to meet visa runners, other tourists and Bodia expats. Plenty women, easy to pull. Cost as Martinis.
Heart of Darkness: gangster-run joint south of Sharkeys. Be careful.
Cathouse: Hostess bar north of Sharkeys. Ladydrinks cost $3.30!! And the girls cannot leave the bar. One I wanted to see later told me $100 then $50. She was tidy, but I passed.
Svay Pak: I don't like brothels, so I only went there to see what had been written about so much elsewhere. The place was dead except for something that may or may not have been creepy. I hightailed it after about 30 seconds.
Tool Kok, on #70 Street, north of the City. Take a left at the top of Monivong, at the Japanese Bridge roundabout... after a kilometer or so, you will see the wooden hut brothels with girls waving you in. I didn't stop, not even for a photo.
Cambodia is much more relaxed than Thailand. The women are easier to deal with, cheaper and generally have better attitude. However, it kicks you hard in the stomach at times and a visit here is an experience that will stay with you in a way that Thailand does not.
As far as personal safety goes, it's worth bearing in mind that less than 30 years ago, 25% of the population was wiped out by mass execution, disease and starvation. Guns can be bought quite easily. A hitman costs $200. You can kill a cow with a rocket launcher for $100
This is what Cambodia looks like outside the cities...
but it can also look like this...
Photo: Cambodia Scenery 01
Toying with staying here longer and giving Thailand a miss, but I find that I'm drinking much, much more than I normally do. I think it's a reaction to the environment.
Another mongering place I visited was Walkabout, south of the New Market. Open 24/7. Lots of whores.
This one (Martinis) has such a lovely nature, but she's a bit of a starfish. I stayed friends with her though because she was so sweet.
Photo: Martinis Starfish 02
.. then her friend joined us :-)
.. the inimitable Central Market (New Market). Art Deco place in concrete, built in 1928 - a must, if only for the architecture..
.. or if you are peckish, the roast spiders...
.. this one (Walkabout) was a honey...
Photos: Walkabout 03 04 05
Right. Are you ready for the hard core stuff?
Are you sure?
I wasn't.
I looked twice when I passed this sight just north of the city
Another day.. another whore.. this one had great hair and fantastic oral skills. She blew me for well over an hour without a break, but was shy about pics.
By the way, my experience with Viets versus Khmers mirrors what I've read elsewhere - Viets go for oral in a big way, Kmers don't. However, 2 Khmers I took together one night went to town, but I got them drunk in Martinis first.
This is the Russian market... south of the city..
The road to the Killing Fields. I came off my bike a few miles up this road. The road was empty, the pot holes the size of craters and I was having a ball on the off-road Honda enduro bike. All of a sudden 2 cambodian teenagers on a moped veered right out in front of me with no warning. I was doing about 30pmh and had no chance of stopping or evading them. The combination of braking hard on a dusty surface and clipping the back of their bike and putting me down with gravel rashes and a broken rib. The looks on their faces screamed "Thank god he didn't hit us.. let's get outta here!!". The biggest headache was getting the bike started again. It was 1pm, boiling hot and I was in the wilderness. I had visions of the bike disappearing if I wallked back, leaving me liable for the $1500 deposit. Argh!!
These speak for themselves...
on the way home..
Inside the Foreign Correspondent's Club. Good food, slow service, high prices, but a classy joint with a view of the river.
This place is some sort of annex to the army barracks a few km past the airport on the right hand side. If you pass through the toll booths, you've gone too far. I'd advise a driver, getting directions in Cambodia is not easy.
For $30 you can shoot an AK47, or an M16, or an M16 with rocket launcher ($100). They have a few handguns, shotguns and an M60 machine gun too.
The beauty highlight of my trip so far... 19, no babies... works Walkabout and also Martinis. As usual for a Khmer, her oral skills ain't up to much and she's no great goer in bed, but her smile lights up the room and I spent the night and day with her. Took her to Tuol Sleng (S21) as she talked a little (in broken English) about Khmer atrocities against each other. Amazingly she'd never been.
By the way, I'm going to try that one about why Viets have light skin :-)
Photos: Beauty Highlight 06 07 08 09 10 11
But just in case we all get too relaxed and think this place is just like Thailand, let's be very clear about where we are.
Concluding remarks.
The majority of Cambodians are far nicer people than the Thais and that the attitudes here are sweeter and less calculating. However, with respect to the the Heart of Darkness, it should be born in mind that this is a haunt frequented by upstart Cambo rich kids plus their bodyguards, who pack heat. I also think personal safety, apart from the obvious threat of mugging in the unlit streets, depends on keeping your nose in your own business. However, the following is an example of how things can unintentionally go astray.
My buddy and I were drinking in a hostess bar and chatted up 2 total stunners, the best we had seen in Cambodia by a long way, who could speak good english. We bought them a few drinks and it soon became clear that they were not used to much alcohol. We played pool, laughed, joked and they seemed happy and comfortable with the situation. When the bar was about to close we asked them if they would like to go to the Heart of Darkness. "Yes, we love it!" Sorted. They went to change, we waited outside. All the other punters had disappeared. Three Cambodians approached us, dressed in better clothes than the average moto driver. "What are you doing", they asked. "waiting for our girls", we said. The middle guy looked at us as if he could have killed us there and then. He was a very creepy guy, but not good looking enough to be a boyfriend, perhaps more of a minder. The three of them just stood and stared at us and the few mintes it took for the girls to emerge were tense.
To make matters worse the girls came out, took us by the hand and dragged us off. I was buzzing on the black rage behind us, but testosterone has other uses too.
When we reached the Heart, my buddy was seriously provoked by a young rich kid, flanked by bodyguards. He is a handy guy, but thankfully savvy enough to recognise when its best to swallow pride. We bought the girls drinks and they went off to dance. On this particular night, a Wednesday, the majority of the clientele were rich Khmers with their girls and bodyguards. Heavies were everywhere and we were jostled by them, apparently unnecessarily. Khmers who on previous nights had welcomed us, no longer did. Then a Khmer girl came up and reproached "our girls" with obvious reference to us. This happened twice. We reckoned that the chances of things kicking off were high and decided to split. The girls, also now unnerved, suggested we leave and they follow. That plan worked and we spent some more time with them, in the company of another of their friends.
The reasons for the hassle never became completely clear, but a jealous boyfriend with money was obviously involved. Also these girls were not your usual Cambodian 10 dollar blowjob whores, but in a completely higher league, the like of which I have not seen in Thailand, or anywhere else for that matter. They actually refused, twice, the offer of money for their time, never mind anything else. They were pure Cambodian, but with highly prized light skin. So as far as finding "good girls" in the sex industry goes, we hit pure gold.
So the moral of the story is that Cambodia is a walk in the park unless you tread on the wrong toes. And believe me, there are a lot of wrong toes in the Heart of Darkness.
The last girl was my best sexual experience in Cambodia. Stunning. Totally attentive, a delight. But nowhere near the looks of the two hostesses we pulled.
A few last words - Cambodia really hit me hard. I won't say I adored Phnom Penh, but it kicked my stomach in a way that no other place has. Whilst I'm writing this during a few days in Pattaya before I go home, my heart stayed in Cambodia and many of the emotions of the place came with me.
I doubt if I'll return to Thailand for a holiday. The much wilder east has so much more to offer. Perhaps that's just the effect of Pattaya which at Xmas feels like the south of Spain. In fact Thailand feels distinctly 1st world compared to Cambo.
Frankly I'm bored out of my skin after 24 hours and I'm thinking of geting a 900cc Honda and gunning it down the coast for a bit.
Feel free to post more of your adventures.