Many days we’d just hang out with the family who owns Sunday Guest House, mostly with Gech, the oldest daughter. Gech is really sharp, loves her job, dresses Japanese and practices origami. Her younger brother is 13, goes to Khmer, Chinese, Japanese and English school and is the best student in each. The father just bought a Korean digital video camera, which never leaves his hand. They go on weekend trips in their private automobile. The guest house thing has really worked out for the family.

One night the Sunday family took us and a retired Australian couple out to dinner a few miles outside the city. We drove to a bunch of huts on stilts with hammocks. We ate beef kebabs, papaya sum tom, corn on the cob, and sucked water from coconuts while we watched the sunset and talked.

Later we went out for beers with the Australians where we met Patrick. Patrick is an ex-UN worker who’s started a private Development oriented IT/Polling/Statistical Analysis services company. He hopes to expand into providing “real Computer Science degrees”. We stayed up late trying to keep up with his Irish liver and listening to grizzled Cambodian stories. In 1991 he came here and there were 8 year olds on motorcycles with RPGs and AK-47’s. He says the current King of Cambodia enabled Pol Pot to come to power and managed to profit from his downfall as well. Patrick thinks there’s no foreign capital here because of a “misconception about the level of corruption.”

Another night up late talking with Patrick, an SUV hit two motos and flipped over right in front of us. Working from the wrong set of reflexes, I jumped up and ran over to see if anyone needed help. Patrick later informed me that this happens several times every night and its best to just not get involved. He said two months ago a similar thing happened a couple blocks up the street and the moto driver was killed. The SUV driver was the nephew of the prime minister. The nephew screamed at the gathering crowd of Khmers, but they wouldn’t go away. So he reached into his car for his machine gun and sprayed them with bullets. Three people died and it took three weeks before the police would arrest him. It remains to be seen if the nephew will be charged with anything.

Patrick needs old computer donations in the hundreds. If you can swing such a thing, contact me. He’s also hiring. Here’s some photos of Phnom Penh.

Tags: asia, cambodia, phnom penh, travel

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