Phnom Penh is a difficult city to describe. Most adjectives seem inadequate. Everything overwhelms: sounds, smells, sights - even the air, which is usually humid and always too hot. There is no escaping Phnom Penh if you are in Phnom Penh.
38 years ago the Khmer Rouge emptied the city. Today, roughly 14% of the population of Cambodia, or a little over 2 million people, live in Phnom Penh. Walking the streets you find a mess of contradictions: old/new, clean/dirty, rich/poor. At the supermarket I watch a Khmer man pay $2300 USD in cash for imported caviar and Ultra-soft Kleenex towels. As I walk out of the store I notice a Khmer child sleeping on the sidewalk. While these extremes exist all over the world, here in Phnom Penh they are consolidated and out in the open for everyone to see.
On the surface, the city is changing. There is suddenly an excess of coffee shops, tall buildings are sprouting, malls are going up and luxury vehicles clog the sidewalks. Walk a block, however, and you’ll see traditions alive in clothes, food, and actions. These cultural relics are an important form of resistance to the recent horrific events of the Khmer Rouge, a power that strove to start Cambodia over at year zero.