About Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia, located at the confluence of the Mekong and the Tonle Sap rivers.Once a rough change for western visitors, Phnom Penh has seriously improved over the past few years. Don't forget that the country was devastated by the Khmer Rouge. Infrastructure may still lacking in some areas and you'll find rubbish, potholes and dust in secondary streets as well as beggars and touts. As everywhere in Asia traffic can be risky but it is fairly light compared to busy cities like Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh.

The city is slowly gaining high rise buildings and traffic lights, while still retaining some of the beauty that made it a Paris of the East before 1970. The city's few French colonial buildings are beautiful: thus a handful of its streetscapes make for a pleasant walk. There are some beautiful wide boulevards, and a parklike riverfront with cafés and restaurants aplenty. The standard tourist sights are few but as a place to relax, watch the streetlife and absorb local color, Phnom Penh is a worthwhile destination for those who enjoy an 'edge' experience and can brave the downsides - which are Asia's worst driving, noise, dust and perennial theft.

Weather is hot and humid, with showers in the late afternoon in the rainy season.

History

Those who find Phnom Penh's current state lacking should recall the terrible times the city has been through in recent decades. In 1975 it was choked with up to 2 million refugees from the war between the then U.S.-backed government and the Khmer Rouge. Following the fall to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, it was completely emptied of civilians and allowed to crumble for several years. Most of the small class of skilled professionals had been murdered by Pol Pot, or driven into exile.

As Cambodia's economy has risen, a new rich class has arisen in Phnom Penh, and a crop of new hotels and restaurants has opened to accommodate them and the tourist trade. There is now a large gulf between the very rich and the very poor, largely due to Cambodia's all-pervasive corruption.

Orientation

All of Phnom Penh's streets are numbered, although some major thoroughfares have names as well. The scheme is simple: odd-numbered streets run north-south, the numbers increasing as you head west from the river, and even numbers run west-east, increasing as you head south (with some exceptions, e.g. the west side of the Boeung Kak lake). House numbers, however, are quite haphazard. Don't expect houses to be numbered sequentially in a street; you might even find two completely unrelated houses with the same number in the same street.