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A week in fabulous Phnom Penh


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Since I am lazy, below are the contents of a note I sent to a friend about my week in PP.

 

 

I just returned from a week in PP.

 

PP is now better than anyplace I have been in Thailand by orders of magnitude.

 

It is a boom town and money is flowing in!

 

It is now clean (95%). The riverfront construction is completed. The riverfront is now beautiful. The view of the Tonle Sap river and the Mekong river converging is lovely.

 

Many new buildings, fitness centers, night clubs, restaurants, book stores........

 

Where the Tonle Sap and Mekong converge, an entire peninsula is being developed with fabulous housing and more.

 

You can book a very decent room on the riverfront, with a balcony, at Paragon, for $38 a night (or if you want plush, Bouganvilller for $109 a night).

 

Forget BKK, PP puts it to shame.

 

Had you invested in PP a year or two ago it would have been better - but, it's not too late.

 

Wish I had your entrepenurial (sp?) experience and money to invest.

 

Do as I suggest, visit for, I would recommend 2 weeks, you won't regret it!!!

 

When I was there, I didn't drink alcohol, I didn't go out at night. I didn't have sex, I exercised at 5am every day (when aerobics classes start, people play badminton, walk, jog, etc) and same at 6pm.

 

Still, I had a tall, beautiful, 25 year old Khmer girl without children and a great, great body hit on me very hard. So, if this is of interest to you, it's available.

 

Go now - you won't regret it.

 

PP is beyond your imagination.

 

Two other things (I hope khunsanuk reads this: 1) I bought a few things in a minimart. Two girls behind the counter. The things I bought were put by girl number 1 into several bags. Girl number 2, without being asked, took out a large bag and put all the small bags into the one large bag.

2) In Thailand, when you order at McDonalds or wherever, you are always told "3 minutes" or many times, one minute. I was shocked when a PP service girl said to me, ABOUT 2 minutes. I have never heard a Thai service girl say ABOUT.

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You obviously don't know anything about my imagination.

 

 

Yep PP is flourishing. There are many reasons to go to Cambo and for sure there is a lot of money to be made (if you know how to do business in SE Asia), but P4P became boring as hell in the last 2-3 years.

Now showings at all, not even a bellybutton. No Coyote dancers anymore. I guess one third or up to 50% of the girls don't go with customers anymore, while they pressure you for LD's endlessly...

Also, prices are going up in PP very much. Food is becoming more expensive than in BKK, I pay almost the same price for a good room in a guest house in PP as for a much better room along Suk. road.

 

I am going to Cambo since 2003, but my trip to PP was the last summer for the time being.

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Yep PP is flourishing. There are many reasons to go to Cambo and for sure there is a lot of money to be made (if you know how to do business in SE Asia), but P4P became boring as hell in the last 2-3 years.

Now showings at all, not even a bellybutton. No Coyote dancers anymore. I guess one third or up to 50% of the girls don't go with customers anymore, while they pressure you for LD's endlessly...

Also, prices are going up in PP very much. Food is becoming more expensive than in BKK, I pay almost the same price for a good room in a guest house in PP as for a much better room along Suk. road.

 

I am going to Cambo since 2003, but my trip to PP was the last summer for the time being.

 

I wasn't so much talking about PP for a punter holiday as I was a place to live and/or invest. Can't disagree about the nightlife from a punter point of view - as I said, I didn't go out at night and didn't have sex. But, I did have this one 25 year old with great body hit on me.

 

I agree food prices have gone up. But, if you consider the value of the $ has gone down (about 40 baht to the $ when I came to Thailand vs about 30 now - so, effectively, prices have gone up 25% due to the decline of the $). So, if you factor in the decline of the $, I don't think prices have gone up a great deal - but, they have gone up.

 

A couple of days, I had a buffet breakfast right on the riverfront for $2.75. Available - good coffee, juice, fruit, fried rice, eggs, a good selection of breads, various pastries. This was a real bargain!

 

I expect that the same as I know where to buy inexpensive and very good Thai food, guys living in PP know where to buy very good and inexpensive Khmer food.

 

Again, I am talking about a place to live/invest - not a place for a punter holiday.

 

I have never been to Angles/Manilla/Subic Bay for a punter holiday - but, if I wanted to go on a punter holiday, I would try this before I would PP.

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Yep PP is flourishing. There are many reasons to go to Cambo and for sure there is a lot of money to be made (if you know how to do business in SE Asia), but P4P became boring as hell in the last 2-3 years.

Now showings at all, not even a bellybutton. No Coyote dancers anymore. I guess one third or up to 50% of the girls don't go with customers anymore, while they pressure you for LD's endlessly...

Also, prices are going up in PP very much. Food is becoming more expensive than in BKK, I pay almost the same price for a good room in a guest house in PP as for a much better room along Suk. road.

 

I am going to Cambo since 2003, but my trip to PP was the last summer for the time being.

 

I wasn't so much talking about PP for a punter holiday as I was a place to live and/or invest. Can't disagree about the nightlife from a punter point of view - as I said, I didn't go out at night and didn't have sex. But, I did have this one 25 year old with great body hit on me.

 

I agree food prices have gone up. But, if you consider the value of the $ has gone down (about 40 baht to the $ when I came to Thailand vs about 30 now - so, effectively, prices have gone up 25% due to the decline of the $). So, if you factor in the decline of the $, I don't think prices have gone up a great deal - but, they have gone up.

 

A couple of days, I had a buffet breakfast right on the riverfront for $2.75. Available - good coffee, juice, fruit, fried rice, eggs, a good selection of breads, various pastries. This was a real bargain!

 

I expect that the same as I know where to buy inexpensive and very good Thai food, guys living in PP know where to buy very good and inexpensive Khmer food.

 

Again, I am talking about a place to live/invest - not a place for a punter holiday.

 

I have never been to Angles/Manilla/Subic Bay for a punter holiday - but, if I wanted to go on a punter holiday, I would try this before I would PP.

 

When I was in Siem Reap in 2003, my first thought was: If I was an entrepreneur in the hotel/bar/shop/tourist business I would invest immediately. There were less than a handfull of bars and restaurants at that time and just a small selection of hotels - and it was already clear that Angkor would become a major tourist spot in SE-Asia.

Same, same in PP. Now have a look how both cities have evolved in the last decade.

 

Anyway, I think you can still make a lot of money there, but you'll have to be much more professional since both cities went upscale and that you have to bring much more money today.

 

In regard to food: this was my major issue from the beginning. I have never eaten in Cambo Khmer food which comes close to the quality of Thai food. IMHO 90% of the Thai street kitchens are better than any middle class Khmer restaurants. Khmer food is rather bland and simple IMHO and lacks the refinement, creativity and variety of the Thai kitchen.

 

PS: Sihanoukville is going upmarket too. We will see there several luxury resorts and hotels soon. But we talking about million dollar investments by Asian companies and Khmer oligarchs.

 

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Sure, the NGO's need a fancy place to drink overpriced coffee after sunday church service. Nightlife is so crappy in PP now it's not even worth a visit, unless you think it's a good time to hang out with western bull dike lesbians at the Heart o' Darkness.

Trying to do business in Cambodia is not easy. the quality of work is pure shite, try to find someone with basic math skills and they'll be at least half Chinese. The best thing that every happened there was the Vietnamese invasion.

Honestly i don't see where the great business opportunity is there. If you hadn't noticed, there are so many rooms to rent and so many bars and restaurants that have so few customers... I can't see any expansion in that sector. Manufacturing... haha can be done cheaper and better anywhere else. raw material extraction is locked up by the asians.

Cambodia is and will remain a basket case like Haiti, dependant on handouts.

Truly the Asshole of Asia

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Sure, the NGO's need a fancy place to drink overpriced coffee after sunday church service. Nightlife is so crappy in PP now it's not even worth a visit, unless you think it's a good time to hang out with western bull dike lesbians at the Heart o' Darkness.

Trying to do business in Cambodia is not easy. the quality of work is pure shite, try to find someone with basic math skills and they'll be at least half Chinese. The best thing that every happened there was the Vietnamese invasion.

Honestly i don't see where the great business opportunity is there. If you hadn't noticed, there are so many rooms to rent and so many bars and restaurants that have so few customers... I can't see any expansion in that sector. Manufacturing... haha can be done cheaper and better anywhere else. raw material extraction is locked up by the asians.

Cambodia is and will remain a basket case like Haiti, dependant on handouts.

Truly the Asshole of Asia

 

That's total bullshit about the nightlife in Phnom Penh. I go several times a year and while, of course, it's far from BKK or Pattaya, and the Khmers tend to be much more socially conservative than the Thais, there is lots of fun to be had. That's a gross overstatement that "50% of the girls will not go with customers". I can only remember once in 7 years of visits there where a girl I wanted to take home would not go with customers. There are lots of fun bars built loosely on the Thai model, and lots of girls who like to fuck within them. You just gotta have an intuition for who those girls are. It's not rocket science.

 

Try Candybar (open 24 hours...try that in BKK!!) on St. 136, Black Cat on St. 51 (also 24 hours but decidedly more laid back than Candybar), or probably the place with the most fun atmosphere of all, Zanzibar on St. 104...those should put a few holes in your erroneous, sweeping generalizations.

 

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As I said, I didn't go out at night. But, I did go for long walks early in the evening for exercise and saw many restaurants will lots of customers.

 

I don't know where the money is coming from but obviously a lot of money has come into Phnom Penh and a lot of businesses are making money.

 

Do you have something against western bull dyke lesbians?

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