via Khmer NZ
Lush walled villas, art galleries in abundance in 'Foreigner's Quarter'
By Michael McCarthy, Special to Vancouver Courier
The “Foreigner’s Quarter,” where many ex-pats live, has an abundance of relaxed cafes and restaurants.Photograph by: Michael McCarthy, Vancouver Courier
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia--Imagine you're in a movie. You are sitting comfortably in a white wicker chair, sipping a cold martini under lush green palm fronds, the ceiling fans silently stirring the moist tropical air, soft classical music wafting through the café, tiny motorbikes buzzing along the street outside, attentive French-trained waiters hovering nearby ready to take your order, the smell of fresh-baked baguettes drifting out of the kitchen. Either it's a dream, or you are staying at the Anise, a charming little 20-room boutique hotel in Phnom Penh Cambodia.
In the award-winning film The Quiet American, a Graham Greene spy thriller starring Michael Caine set in 1950s Saigon, filmmakers were able to find certain tiny sections of Saigon that actually looked like they hadn't changed since the French occupied what was then known as Indo-China.
Thanks to creeping globalism, these days you can travel all over Asia and you won't find many cities that still boast such quaint colonial charm. On the south side of the Cambodia capital of Phnom Penh, however, in what both locals and ex-pats alike refer to as the Foreigner's Quarter, the lovely walled villas, relaxed cafés, quaint tree-lined boulevards, art galleries, bars and parks reminiscent of a 1930's Paris can still be enjoyed by visitors who know just where to look.
Phnom Penh is what Bangkok used to look like before the Thai capital turned into the Los Angeles of Asia. The city has recovered nicely from the civil war started by the insane dictator Pol Pot way back in the 1970s (brought to life in the film The Killing Fields) and it's starting to be discovered by tourists looking for an authentic colonial experience, but the vast majority of foreign travellers stays in downtown hotels and frequents the riverside promenade cafés and restaurants that give the city much of its charm.
It takes good luck, a good guide or meeting an ex-pat to discover the charms of the hidden Foreigner's Quarter, well south of downtown, but it's luck well worth having.
Hail a tuk tuk, the quaint three-wheeled taxis of southeast Asia, and tell the driver you want to go to Boeung Keng Kang. Bordered by Sihanouk, Norodom, Mao Tse Toung and Monivong boulevards, the neighbourhood has been the city's ex-pat quarter since the 1980s. Home to many NGOs, embassies and international organizations, as well as expatriate residences and hotels catering to long-term visitors, the area is dotted with hotels, restaurants, bars, silk shops, and spas, with the greatest concentration at the northern end of Street 278, particularly between blocks 51 and 63. It's well worth a stroll any time of day, but especially for lunch or dinner, or even better in the early evening when the bars and cafés are full and the street is at its liveliest.
Despite being somewhat off the beaten tourist path, Phnom Penh has dozens of wonderful attractions well worth the visitors time, including street markets, pagodas, museums, palaces, boat cruises on the river, restaurants and bars, but you'll have a hard time finding anything to match the visual charm of Boeung Keng Kang. Last time I was there, fully air conditioned rooms at the Anise were just US$25 a night, and that modest price included a wonderful Khmer dinner on the patio watching the world drift by. With a little imagination you can pretend you are Ralph Fiennes in the English Patient, or Debra Winger in The Sheltering Sky. In the old colonial quarter of Phnom Penh, time travel does exist, just like an old classic movie.
For more Michael McCarthy travel stories, log on to http://www.intentional-traveler.com/ .
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