A Month in Phnom Penh — Why Cambodia’s Capital Surprised Me

I went to Phnom Penh in February 2023 expecting not to like it. I stayed for almost a month. By the end, I had not changed my mind about Cambodia in general, but I had changed my mind about Phnom Penh specifically — which is a more interesting result than the one I had planned for.

I had been in Ho Chi Minh City for the previous month. Crossing into Cambodia by land — that strange overland border crossing where the visa stamps take longer than the actual journey — was a study in contrasts. Vietnam is loud and propulsive. Cambodia, on the other side of the same flat country, is quieter, slower, and weighted with a history that takes effort to set aside.

What Phnom Penh Actually Is

Phnom Penh is a French colonial city built on the confluence of three rivers — the Mekong, the Tonle Sap, and the Bassac — that has been through an extraordinary amount in the last century. Bombed during the Vietnam War. Emptied during the Khmer Rouge. Rebuilt slowly, then quickly, then chaotically in the 2010s when foreign investment arrived. Today it is a city of two million people that functions as a real capital — government, embassies, NGOs, a startup scene that is finding its feet — sitting on top of one of the most traumatic recent histories of any city in the world.

The riverside promenade has been redeveloped. The Royal Palace — golden roofs, manicured gardens — is open to visitors and worth a morning. The Russian Market and the Central Market are both functional rather than touristic. The food is good, the prices are low, and the rents in 2023 were ridiculous if you were paid in any hard currency.

The Heaviness

I went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum once. I did not need to go twice. Some of the heaviness of Phnom Penh sits in places like Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields outside the city. Some of it sits in conversations you have with Cambodians of a certain generation, where the silences mean things you eventually understand. Some of it sits in the architecture — the old colonial buildings that survived because they were too useful to destroy.

I had read Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father years before. Standing in the actual rooms where the events happened changes the abstraction into something else. You leave Tuol Sleng quieter than you arrived. The rest of the day is harder to spend lightly.

The Daily Life That Works

What surprised me about a month in Phnom Penh was how liveable the daily rhythm became. Coffee at one of the dozens of small cafes that have opened in the last few years — proper espresso, made by people who care about it, for $2. Lunch at a Khmer place where rice and a curry and a soup come to $4. Afternoon work at a co-working space or a hotel lobby with reliable wifi. Evenings on Bassac Lane — the strip of small bars in a couple of side streets that has become Phnom Penh’s most genuinely social neighbourhood.

The expat community is interesting. A mix of long-term Cambodia hands who have been here since the late 90s, NGO workers cycling through 2-3 year postings, and a recent wave of remote workers who have figured out that Phnom Penh costs about a third of Bangkok and a fifth of Singapore for a comparable quality of life. The conversations are good. The dinners go late.

What Phnom Penh Is Not

It is not Bangkok. The infrastructure is thinner. The traffic is worse for a city of its size. There is no metro. The pavements are unfinished in places. The power goes out occasionally. If you need a city that performs at the level of Bangkok or Singapore, Phnom Penh will frustrate you.

It is also not Yangon or Vientiane. Those cities still feel like they are catching up to themselves. Phnom Penh has decided what it is and is mostly delivering on it. The decision involved some trade-offs. The chaos is real. The construction is everywhere. The traffic is genuinely bad.

Should You Go?

For a few days as part of a Cambodia trip — yes, the museum and the riverside and the markets and a couple of dinners. For a longer stay, the calculation is different. Phnom Penh rewards patience and is not for everyone. If you are willing to accept a city that has weight and complications, that is not optimised for visitors, and that asks something of you in return — you will find it more interesting than its reputation suggests.

I left after almost a month with more respect for Phnom Penh than I had arrived with. I would go back. Not for a week. Maybe for another month, when the work allows.