Temples and the oldest profession.

I suppose it was ever thus; that the money lenders and prostitutes ply their trade out on the temple steps and its precincts are furnished with hostelries and ale houses.

Cathedrals used to be meeting places for foreigners, businessmen and tradespeople, promenades for the social climbers, somewhere to lobby politicians and they were also the refuge of the desperate, asylum for the persecuted and somewhere to find a sympathetic ear and maybe temporary shelter for the poor.

Phnom Pehn felt a bit like this to me. A walk along the wide riverside promenade will take you past glorious tree shaded French colonial mansions, the timeless Royal Palace behind its forbidding walls and lacework gates shimmering tourquoise in the midday heat, a long string of little restaurants and travel agents catering to the tourists, the famous Foreign Correspondent's Club with its open sided bar overlooking the promenade from its first floor corner, corner bars with their wicker armchairs spilling onto the pavement and constant stream of large cars, motorbikes and tuc-tucs roaring along the narrow main road that runs alongside the promenade.  All the same people who gathered on cathedral steps in days of old are right here on the waterfront at Phnom Pehn.

Along the pavements, mixed in with daily serving of fresh tousists are the over-tanned, ageing expat men who meet for brunch in the bars and keep the prostitutes employed in the afternoons and evenings. 

After dark the pavements become carpeted with poor women and their babies who sleep and play amongst the crowds as if there is no-one else around. They don't beg with open hands, rather, they languish a if taking the evening air or sleep in blankets with their little ones around them. Then, at about 10pm they all start to wander off, chatting and laughing with waiters and bar hops as they go on their way. 

The sex trade is ever present in Phnom Pehn. Bar 69, Best Bar, Bar a go-go, Mr. Butterfly, Candy Bar,Matilda Bar and so on.  The girls are lovely but they all have that blankness in their eyes that tells a tale of hardship, family shame and unhappy endings. In Cambodia, the duty of care and providing for the family falls to the girls and many of them come to the city as their last resort and enter the sex trade to earn money to send home to the family in the country. It's an age-old story isn't it. Click here for more detail: Phnom Pehn Sex industry

What struck me about Phnom Pehn is that it is a town desperately trying to persuade the rest of the world that it is a capital city. This 'beautiful pearl of the Mekong' was utterly destroyed in the series of conflicts and political disasters that began with the Vietnam War and ended with the shame of Pol Pot's  reign of terror and civil genocide. 

They have constructed sparkling, wide boulevards which have magnificent monuments at their intersections but for a town with a population that is only twice that of a medium sized English provincial town, everything has a touch of the 'white elephant' about it. Behind the boulevards and the gleaming promenades there is the usual bustle and chaos of any Asian town. 

Little markets block the streets to traffic, people sell hardware out of their car boots, fetid dumpsters overflow, naked children run with dogs as their mothers sell a limited range of meat, poultry, vegetables, fish and crabs.  These are not like the prosperous street markets of Vietnam where vibrant flowers and stacked dry goods rub shoulders with fresh produce, chicken and rabbits in cages and live fish swimming in bowls. 






I arrived in this city only 10 days after the aged and much loved king had been burned in a fabulous funerary temple constructed especially for the occasion while the king lay in state for 3 months. King Sihanouk ascended to the throne at the age of 18 and died at 92 so he was the one constant thread that has run through decades of glory and prosperity, fascist terror and genocide. That this little country has maintained its independence is a miracle. 

The sadness in the hearts of Cambodians is almost tangible. Sadness at the loss of a generation in the genocide. Sadness at displacement and the loss of 'home' under Pol Pot. Sadness at the loss of their king of 74 years. Sadness at the exploitation of their women in the garment factories and the sex industry. My charming tuc-tuc driver reduced me to tears with all the stories as he toured me around and opened his heart. At one point he said 'I just don't know what will become of my Cambodia'. He has no faith in the new king who, anyway, is powerless and, at the age of 55 has little influence or any diplomatic skills apparently.

The bus ride back to Vietnam was not as joyful as my arrival three days earlier. Now I could see all the plastic litter that lays  between homesteads, the cows wandering in the road don't seem as charming. The wagon loads of workers being shipped back to their villages have taken on a new meaning now. This had been a very long three days.