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| Old and new ... a Cambodian man steers his boat in front of a construction site on the banks of the Mekong river in Phnom Penh. Photo: AFP |
Lindsay Murdoch
PHNOM PENH: When Vietnamese soldiers straggled out of
Cambodia in September 1989 there was one telephone line out of the country, a
crackling one routed via Moscow.
Foreign correspondents covering the event arrived to find a
blackened, decaying city ravaged by decades of war and foreign invasion which
had once been known as the lovely French-built "Pearl of Asia."
Just getting to Phnom Penh was an ordeal, having to obtain a
Vietnamese transit visa in Bangkok (three days), rustle up the shambolic
Cambodian honorary consul in Ho Chi Minh City (two days and bottle of Johnny
Walker) and take a bone-jarring seven hour taxi ride, river ferry crossing
included ($US300 in crisp notes only).
The few hotels inviting to foreigners in Phnom Penh were
overrun by cockroaches and other unpleasant tropical species, the power came on
intermittently and there were only a couple of places to eat, one of them in
the ground floor restaurant of a hotel where, if you ordered a la carte, the
cook, squatting over an open fire, prepared a dubious chicken soup laced with
marijuana legally purchased at the local market for $US1 per large sack.
Correspondents had to pay up to $US100 a day to be
accompanied wherever they went by a government spy, who doubled as a guide and
interpreter, who would arrange an interview with the brother of the murderous
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot (for two packets of cigarettes).
Fast forward 23 years.
The distant wars and upheavals feel like a footnote in
history in this city of skyscrapers, swank nightspots, mega malls and huge
commercial developments that will next week host a summit of many of the
world's leaders, including Barack Obama and Julia Gillard.
Throughout the 1990s Phnom Penh, built at the confluence of
the Mekong, Bassac and Tonle Sap rivers, was considered to be like Bangkok 20
years earlier with a languid post-colonial charm, even if it was haunted by the
mass graves of Pol Pot's killing fields.
Today the French colonial buildings and historical
architecture are fast disappearing, dwarfed by high rise mega structures and
cranes. Luxury cars and motor bikes compete for space in traffic jams on broad
boulevards.
According to a car dealer, Phnom Penh now has a staggering
50,000 Lexus, not to mention tens of thousands other expensive vehicles such as
BMWs, Mercedes and Humvees.
Streets that once emptied at dusk and from where gunfire
would ring throughout the night are now packed with people 24 hours a day.
Discotheques thump with dance music and serve French champagne until dawn.
Streets are lined with trendy restaurants, clothing
boutiques and souvenir shops. Tattered clothes have been replaced by the latest
fashions and some businessmen appear for lunch wearing bow ties.
Where in 1989 correspondents remained uncontactable to their
editors, which most of them thought was a good idea, those arriving to cover
the East Asia Summit this weekend can buy the latest smartphones and tablet
devices and are supposed to be never out of reach of the 24-hour news cycle.
More than 13 million mobile phones have been bought in
Cambodia, almost as many of the entire population.
Homeless people still beg on Phnom Penh's streets and pick
through piles of rubbish, as they did in 1989.
But the biggest transformation for the city has been
people's mood. Before they were mostly unsmiling, distrustful and some carried
a thousand-yard stare, a look in their eyes like life had been sucked out of
them.
Now the city is alive with people whose lives have returned
to normality after emerging from one of the darkest episodes of the 20th
century. Early mornings and evenings waterfront promenades and city parks are
brought to life by aerobics groups, break-dancers or strollers, a joy to see.
Bangkok-based Lindsay Murdoch covered the withdrawal of
Vietnamese troops from Cambodia in 1989 and since then has made frequent trips
to the country.
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