Favourite bars of all time in Phnom Penh
Is a long time since I was in cambodia but I liked bars where you did not have to put up with females trying to extract a extra dollar from you. I remember one run by an American called Jeff just off riverside near the old market. Cannot remember the name. Is he still running it.
- spitthedog
- Is the World Outside still there ?
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Looks lovely there.
Like a mirror image of the beach in Shitsville..
"I don't care what the people are thinking, i ain't drunk i'm just drinking"
ricecakes wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 4:20 pmRat race?
Hardly.....
Living the dream. Just back from walking the dogs on the local beach 500m away .
I meant id do my previous decade and a bit all over....
Not a new one.
Doesn't look like Sihanoukville beaches now, perhaps before the Chinese invasion. It's seems so tranquil.
- Lucky Lucan
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That would be Garage. Jeff and Brunt ran it. Brunt is still here. The bar has gone through a few owners since but still remains essentially the same. Since all these restrictions came in I have mostly gone to a very obscure bar. I go to the riverside area sometimes, but there are very few bars still open properly. Larry's, Garage, Harry's and Ooh La La are the only ones I have been in recently.Hun wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 4:25 pmIs a long time since I was in cambodia but I liked bars where you did not have to put up with females trying to extract a extra dollar from you. I remember one run by an American called Jeff just off riverside near the old market. Cannot remember the name. Is he still running it.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
What was Snow’s bar Maxine's like, any good?
I see the Green House was closing up a month or so ago.
I see the Green House was closing up a month or so ago.
pew, pew, pew, pew!
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Guest wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 3:27 pmThis thread amply reflects the maxim that a place adapts to its people. My memory of most of the bars cited were that they were shitholes, but of course well frequented by the first two waves of expats who liked shitholes. And they were run by shits.
Now we are in waves three and four of the expat cycle. Waves one and two are either dead or gone home or licking their wounds living penurious lifestyles in some shack in the suburbs. Waves three and four want the type of places Miggles wants and is giving them.
I prefer the term character.
1
1
====================
Why are the gods such vicious cunts?
Where is the god of tits and wine?
Why are the gods such vicious cunts?
Where is the god of tits and wine?
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Even after all these years have gone by, that accusation, that I was “beating a waitress in the street” or variations on it, still hurts me because it’s simply not true. I think enough time has passed and I am now so completely different to the person I was then that, if it were true, I would simply say so.
Nevertheless it has taken on a truth of its own, not least because it was the story put out by the police, one that the media ran with and a story that those who wished me ill were happy to believe and repeat. Who was I to refute it. My own reputation was mud. Trashed, in no small part by myself I know it. I was a meth head junkie, sitting in a detention cell, waiting to be deported. My word was worth nothing.
However, perhaps now, enough time has passed for me to attempt to put the record straight and to offer a more objective and accurate account of the events that led to my departure from the kingdom. The irony is, the hard cold objective truth doesn’t really do me any favours either but here goes.
It has taken me years to come to terms with what happened or to admit to myself the truth about who I had become in those days. For just over a year, I was a total meth head junkie, completely immersed in the habit . I was using all day, every day. I smoked a pipe the moment woke up and continued until I burned out and crashed several days later. I routinely stayed awake for 48 hours at a time, sometimes more. I rarely ate. Sleep became a kind of enemy, something to be avoided and dealing, scoring and smoking became the principle focus of my attention and of course, it didn’t take long for both myself and the bar to gain a notoriety for drug abuse and the chaos that surrounds it.
Chem sex played a huge part. I lost all interest in sex without meth. It simply didn’t interest me. The two went together and each fuelled a fascination, obsession even, with the other. Of course, as the bar’s reputation for drugs grew, meth using hookers, yamma hoes, would hang around the bar, so the opportunity for druggie sex was always there. In the last months of my life in Phnom Penh, I don’t think there was a night when I didn’t smoke with and sleep with a meth using whore. I would just close the bar and choose one to join me upstairs. If a hooker didn’t smoke, I wasn’t interested in her.
At its best it was mind-blowing. The best, filthiest , sleaziest most uninhibited animalistic sex I have ever had, almost primal in its intensity and with a girl who is also really into it. A rare thing with sex with whores. Meth loosens inhibitions, enhances stamina and increases sensitivity, so at its best the sex was awesome. More often than not it was disappointing, not quite reaching the promise and only offering a frustrating glimpse at what was possible. This of course, merely increased the desire for the next experience.
I mention sex here because I have to admit, it was intimately tied up with the whole meth lifestyle and given the wide availability of both meth and of hookers who used it, it made any attempt at giving up all the harder. Not that I particularly wanted to. Self-destructive as it was, I was simply having to much of a good time and anyway, there was always the promise of the next hit, the next girl, the next fuck, held out in front of me like a carrot in front of a donkey.
I knew it would all crash and burn eventually. Unconsciously I think I hoped for it. I was trapped. The bar was making little money and was drowning in chaos. I was over my visa and I was in the middle of a raging addiction. I had completely trashed my good name and reputation and I was heading to the grave. I knew there was no way I was ever going to kick it while I stayed in Phnom Penh, not with all the ingredients to feed my lifestyle so freely available. No, if I was ever going to kick this habit, I was going to need to leave the country but I was trapped.
I also had a kid to take care of and that was the most selfish of all. Although I did my best to keep it all away from him, and I think I did a pretty good job of isolating him from it all, the chaos inevitably impacted on him and that was not cool. Not cool at all. For his sake too, I knew I had to get out.
It was also destroying me. Meth is a dirty drug and a dirty lifestyle. I had lost weight to a startling extent. I had sunken cheeks and a gaunt expression with dark black rings around my eyes. Meth was stripping the enamel of my teeth which added to the image. I looked fucking terrible. I looked like a caricature of meth head junkie which, of course, was exactly what I was.
So, for a few weeks I had been sleeping with this one particular yamma whore who I had met in a noodle shop outside Walkabout, She met my standard for fucked up sleazy meth fuelled sex, so I kept her around. Now I am aware that any sentence that begins,” I was sleeping with this yamma head whore” is not going to end well but, what can I say, she was great in bed and, as I have explained, fucked up druggy sex with sleazy yamma whores had become a rather important life goal for me.
The previous night she had thrown one of her moods, an unattractive and boring habit I had seen her pull on previous occasions, moody sulks for no apparent reason that went on for hours and ruined the evening. When under this cloud she was impervious to conversation or reason and was best just ignored and left alone to come out of it. Nevertheless, It wasn’t something I was going to indulge for long. I was far too self-absorbed and selfish to accommodate her bullshit, so I resolved if she didn’t pack it in, I was going to dump her and find someone else
She didn’t like being ignored so she stormed out after telling me she was leaving me to return to her Khmer boyfriend, in, I guess, an attempt to elicit jealously. I was beyond such bullshit. I said bye and waved her off which only infuriated her more.
She left, and I shrugged, there are plenty more fish in the sea and I was remembering this cute couple of whores I had seen hanging around the riverside. It didn’t take long to find them and I brought them both home. Yeah, both of them.
Morning came and I left the girls in my bed while I sorted out my son’s breakfast. He ate and was out the door to play with his mates, leaving me alone with the two cuties upstairs. The morning was looking promising. I had the house to myself. I had a bag of drugs and I had two naked girls in my bed. What could possibly spoil such a lovely day.
I had given Kenny my barman a key to the bar so he could open up and he arrived at about 7.00 am. He knew me well enough to keep quiet and leave me alone. My first mistake however was not giving him instructions to not let any girls in. I can’t blame him but, yeah, he opened the door to the girl who had stormed out the previous night. This was a big mistake. She then proceeded to act like the wounded cheated on girlfriend, conveniently forgetting that it was her who left . She stormed up the stairs, took one look at the two naked whores in my bed and proceeded to throw a tantrum, crying and wailing and demanding they leave.
I have long since learned not to play these stupid games. Access to the upstairs part of the bar is via a pull down hatch. I simply pulled the hatch down, locked it and ignored her. My barman was downstairs. Let her rant and rave. What harm could she do? It was preferable to a row which she wanted and which I was determined not to give her. As far as I was concerned, I owed her nothing. She wasn’t my girlfriend. She had left. It was all theatre and anyway, I had a bag of ice and two naked `20 year old whores in my bed. I wasn’t going to waste my morning on her bullshit.
However, she didn’t leave as I had hoped. Instead she grabbed a bottle of Johnny Walker Black (They always go for the top shelf) and proceeded to down it, shot after shot after shot. all the while crying and wailing and pulling her hair out. Kenny later told me he tried to grab the bottle but she snatched it back and snarled at him like an angry dog. She went on and on, whining and crying and wailing while getting more and more pissed.
A neighbour complained and shouted “shut up” through the window. It was becoming increasingly impossible to ignore her but I knew, I just fucking knew, that engaging with her would only make things worse. I was determined to avoid this at all cost and the only way I knew how to do that was to stay upstairs, keep the door locked and ignore her.
It worked for an hour, and in the meantime I turned my attention to the girls in my bed and my big bag of drugs…..then I heard a smashing sound.
This I couldn’t ignore. Enraged by my ignoring her, the girl had gone completely berserk and started smashing everything. She swept her arm across the shelves smashing all the bottles. She threw bottles at the wall smashing the framed pictures and exploding booze all down the walls. She smashed the glass drinks fridge, she pushed the computer monitor off the bar and pulled over the cupboard housing the PC and amp ripping them all out of their wiring. She completely wrecked the bar,
I rushed down the stairs to find the girl absolutely pissed out of her head, completely hysterical, sitting in the middle of the wreckage of my bar, screaming and crying with snot and tears running down her face and matted into her hair. She had destroyed my bar, in one insane moment, she had trashed the place.
My barman Kenny had stood by and watched the whole thing uselessly. I couldn’t really blame him. He wasn’t paid to put up with this kind of shit and frankly, I didn’t know how to deal with it either. As I stood there, staring in horror at the wreckage of my place, I couldn’t help but consider the juxtaposition., on the one hand I had heaven upstairs, two cute naked girls in my bed with a big bag of drugs and the invitation to sex and, on the other hand, the sight in front of me, like a vision from a fucked up nightmare, A smashed up bar, broken glass and spilled booze everywhere, furniture turned over , appliances smashed, and this fucking maniac sitting like a drunken demon in the middle of it.
Now the question I have to ask anyone who wants to judge me is this. What would you have done? What would you do if you came downstairs to find this absolutely hysterical destructive goblin smashing up your home and business. “Not get myself into this mess in the first place, you idiot” is a smug but honest reply to which I can only put my hands up but, again, what can I say, I did and I was. My bad.
I have been over this in my mind time and time again over the years, replaying the events and considering what else I could have done and I have no hesitation in saying that I acted correctly and I would do the same again and so would anyone. I could do nothing else.
I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. She struggled and fought like a possessed banshee. I restrained her as best I could. I grabbed a handful of hair and I held her arm behind her back and I shouted at my barman to open the door. I marched her to the door and I simply threw her into the street where she collapsed in a heap. I pulled the door closed behind her, locked it and took a deep breath.
She wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. Now things were completely out of my control. She started banging on the door trying to get back in. A crowd formed. I don’t know what she told the crowd, whether she encouraged the belief that I was in the wrong or whether the police, who were already looking for an excuse to shut me down, simply made that assumption and ran with it. I will never know
There was a knock on the door. It was the police, two cops. I opened the door and let them in. I tried to explain. I pointed to the scene of destruction in front of them. “You do”. The cop said. “You do this”. He was blaming me for the damage and he wasn’t interested in listening to any alternative explanation. My barman tried to intervene, tried to explain, bless him and the cop turned and yelled at him in Khmer, telling him in no uncertain terms to shut up and stay out of it. He had his story, nothing was going to interrupt it.
One of the cops grabbed my arm and marched me out into the street, ignoring my pleas to allow me to put on shoes. I had walked maybe 2 steps from the bar when I felt a punch to the side of the head, then another and another. I I went down under blows and did my best to curl up and protect myself from the punches and kicks that were raining down on me. It was all very blurry and it all happened very fast but I recall the police joined in, I remember glimpsing the colour of police uniforms as they swung, punching me several times in the face.
Somehow I managed to get to my feet and I made a beeline back to the bar. The two cops chased after me and tried to stop me. Later I thought about that, I was fleeing from a lynch mob, what did they intend to achieve by stopping me reaching safety? I don’t think the cops wanted me dead. Rather I think they joined in with the mob as a way of demonstrating to the crowd that they were one of them and perhaps avoiding the crowd turning on them.
I made it back to the bar with the cops hot on my tail. Once again they grabbed me and, after a struggle, marched me, still barefoot, into the street. This time the crowd had been dispersed and I made it to the police station which was literally over the road.
From the moment I entered the police station, it was clear that the police narrative had been accepted. The duty policeman had to be restrained from attacking me, and took great pleasure in handcuffing me as tightly as he could. I knew it was over. I was way over my visa and it was only a matter of time before the cops figured that out and kicked me out. Part of me was relieved.
I was never charged with anything. My only “crime” was a visa overstay and that was not a criminal offence. The girl never tried filing any charges, though the police wanted her to. She vanished and I never saw her again. After a night in the cells, I was taken to a detention centre near the airport where I was locked up while I waited for the embassy to sort my son’s passport out, then after about 3 months of 23 hrs a day solitary confinement, I was reunited with my son, put on a plane and sent packing.
Following my arrest, the police spun this story of how they heroically “rescued me from a mob” According to this story, the one repeated here, I was in the street beating either a waitress, my wife or my girlfriend, when my angry neighbours decided to teach me a lesson. The police intervened and heroically saved me from certain death. I particularly like how this story not only damns myself but at the same time portrays the local sangkat as heroes too.
.Variations on this story were quickly picked up by local media including this website which ludicrously claimed the girl was in a coma. The Phnom Penh Post too repeated the police line almost word for word. A few regional websites also picked up the story and repeated the police line. I was sat in a detention cell for 3 months but not one of the journalists or bloggers who wrote about me bothered to ask me for my side of the story.
As is well known, KIR the former owner of this site had a personal axe to grind with me after being thrown out of my bar and ensured this site flamed me mercilessly while locking me out and ensuring I couldn’t defend myself. Most damaging of all, an Australian expat “journalist” called Bronwyn Sloan who I had fallen out with years earlier, took my misfortune as an opportunity for revenge and, in the spirit of kicking a guy when he’s down, ensured the story was picked up as widely as possible. I have no hard feelings. They are both dead now. I’m not.
The truth is, getting thrown out was the best thing that could have happened to me. Well, perhaps I could have got by without the kicking from a lynch mob. But leaving undoubtedly saved my life. If I had stayed, I would have died.
I want to be clear. In the end, only one person is responsible for the mess I got myself into and that is me. It was my choices, my vices and my selfishness and hedonism that was behind every misfortune that befell me. There are no excuses, no attempts at mitigation. No one is to blame, only me. I am the author of my own fucked up story and it I own it
I’m a different person now. That morning, upstairs, in bed with my two cute yabba whores, was the last time I touched meth or any drug. Leaving the country, completely removing myself from the toxic environment I was in, was the single most effective technique for getting clean. I heartedly recommend it to anyone attempting to kick a habit. I just stopped. I did it easily, permanently and instantly. I never looked back. These days I live very quietly. I don’t even drink. I do however; still ride a motorcycle that is a habit I picked up in Phnom Penh that I will never give up.
The events I have written about above all happened a long time ago and I have no interest in rehashing them beyond the account I have given. I won’t be responding to posts or questions about it. . It is as honest and accurate an account of what happened as I can remember. I hope it puts any misunderstandings, deliberate or otherwise to bed once and for all and, if not, at the least I hope it provided an entertaining story of days gone by. It is what it is.
Peaceman
Nevertheless it has taken on a truth of its own, not least because it was the story put out by the police, one that the media ran with and a story that those who wished me ill were happy to believe and repeat. Who was I to refute it. My own reputation was mud. Trashed, in no small part by myself I know it. I was a meth head junkie, sitting in a detention cell, waiting to be deported. My word was worth nothing.
However, perhaps now, enough time has passed for me to attempt to put the record straight and to offer a more objective and accurate account of the events that led to my departure from the kingdom. The irony is, the hard cold objective truth doesn’t really do me any favours either but here goes.
It has taken me years to come to terms with what happened or to admit to myself the truth about who I had become in those days. For just over a year, I was a total meth head junkie, completely immersed in the habit . I was using all day, every day. I smoked a pipe the moment woke up and continued until I burned out and crashed several days later. I routinely stayed awake for 48 hours at a time, sometimes more. I rarely ate. Sleep became a kind of enemy, something to be avoided and dealing, scoring and smoking became the principle focus of my attention and of course, it didn’t take long for both myself and the bar to gain a notoriety for drug abuse and the chaos that surrounds it.
Chem sex played a huge part. I lost all interest in sex without meth. It simply didn’t interest me. The two went together and each fuelled a fascination, obsession even, with the other. Of course, as the bar’s reputation for drugs grew, meth using hookers, yamma hoes, would hang around the bar, so the opportunity for druggie sex was always there. In the last months of my life in Phnom Penh, I don’t think there was a night when I didn’t smoke with and sleep with a meth using whore. I would just close the bar and choose one to join me upstairs. If a hooker didn’t smoke, I wasn’t interested in her.
At its best it was mind-blowing. The best, filthiest , sleaziest most uninhibited animalistic sex I have ever had, almost primal in its intensity and with a girl who is also really into it. A rare thing with sex with whores. Meth loosens inhibitions, enhances stamina and increases sensitivity, so at its best the sex was awesome. More often than not it was disappointing, not quite reaching the promise and only offering a frustrating glimpse at what was possible. This of course, merely increased the desire for the next experience.
I mention sex here because I have to admit, it was intimately tied up with the whole meth lifestyle and given the wide availability of both meth and of hookers who used it, it made any attempt at giving up all the harder. Not that I particularly wanted to. Self-destructive as it was, I was simply having to much of a good time and anyway, there was always the promise of the next hit, the next girl, the next fuck, held out in front of me like a carrot in front of a donkey.
I knew it would all crash and burn eventually. Unconsciously I think I hoped for it. I was trapped. The bar was making little money and was drowning in chaos. I was over my visa and I was in the middle of a raging addiction. I had completely trashed my good name and reputation and I was heading to the grave. I knew there was no way I was ever going to kick it while I stayed in Phnom Penh, not with all the ingredients to feed my lifestyle so freely available. No, if I was ever going to kick this habit, I was going to need to leave the country but I was trapped.
I also had a kid to take care of and that was the most selfish of all. Although I did my best to keep it all away from him, and I think I did a pretty good job of isolating him from it all, the chaos inevitably impacted on him and that was not cool. Not cool at all. For his sake too, I knew I had to get out.
It was also destroying me. Meth is a dirty drug and a dirty lifestyle. I had lost weight to a startling extent. I had sunken cheeks and a gaunt expression with dark black rings around my eyes. Meth was stripping the enamel of my teeth which added to the image. I looked fucking terrible. I looked like a caricature of meth head junkie which, of course, was exactly what I was.
So, for a few weeks I had been sleeping with this one particular yamma whore who I had met in a noodle shop outside Walkabout, She met my standard for fucked up sleazy meth fuelled sex, so I kept her around. Now I am aware that any sentence that begins,” I was sleeping with this yamma head whore” is not going to end well but, what can I say, she was great in bed and, as I have explained, fucked up druggy sex with sleazy yamma whores had become a rather important life goal for me.
The previous night she had thrown one of her moods, an unattractive and boring habit I had seen her pull on previous occasions, moody sulks for no apparent reason that went on for hours and ruined the evening. When under this cloud she was impervious to conversation or reason and was best just ignored and left alone to come out of it. Nevertheless, It wasn’t something I was going to indulge for long. I was far too self-absorbed and selfish to accommodate her bullshit, so I resolved if she didn’t pack it in, I was going to dump her and find someone else
She didn’t like being ignored so she stormed out after telling me she was leaving me to return to her Khmer boyfriend, in, I guess, an attempt to elicit jealously. I was beyond such bullshit. I said bye and waved her off which only infuriated her more.
She left, and I shrugged, there are plenty more fish in the sea and I was remembering this cute couple of whores I had seen hanging around the riverside. It didn’t take long to find them and I brought them both home. Yeah, both of them.
Morning came and I left the girls in my bed while I sorted out my son’s breakfast. He ate and was out the door to play with his mates, leaving me alone with the two cuties upstairs. The morning was looking promising. I had the house to myself. I had a bag of drugs and I had two naked girls in my bed. What could possibly spoil such a lovely day.
I had given Kenny my barman a key to the bar so he could open up and he arrived at about 7.00 am. He knew me well enough to keep quiet and leave me alone. My first mistake however was not giving him instructions to not let any girls in. I can’t blame him but, yeah, he opened the door to the girl who had stormed out the previous night. This was a big mistake. She then proceeded to act like the wounded cheated on girlfriend, conveniently forgetting that it was her who left . She stormed up the stairs, took one look at the two naked whores in my bed and proceeded to throw a tantrum, crying and wailing and demanding they leave.
I have long since learned not to play these stupid games. Access to the upstairs part of the bar is via a pull down hatch. I simply pulled the hatch down, locked it and ignored her. My barman was downstairs. Let her rant and rave. What harm could she do? It was preferable to a row which she wanted and which I was determined not to give her. As far as I was concerned, I owed her nothing. She wasn’t my girlfriend. She had left. It was all theatre and anyway, I had a bag of ice and two naked `20 year old whores in my bed. I wasn’t going to waste my morning on her bullshit.
However, she didn’t leave as I had hoped. Instead she grabbed a bottle of Johnny Walker Black (They always go for the top shelf) and proceeded to down it, shot after shot after shot. all the while crying and wailing and pulling her hair out. Kenny later told me he tried to grab the bottle but she snatched it back and snarled at him like an angry dog. She went on and on, whining and crying and wailing while getting more and more pissed.
A neighbour complained and shouted “shut up” through the window. It was becoming increasingly impossible to ignore her but I knew, I just fucking knew, that engaging with her would only make things worse. I was determined to avoid this at all cost and the only way I knew how to do that was to stay upstairs, keep the door locked and ignore her.
It worked for an hour, and in the meantime I turned my attention to the girls in my bed and my big bag of drugs…..then I heard a smashing sound.
This I couldn’t ignore. Enraged by my ignoring her, the girl had gone completely berserk and started smashing everything. She swept her arm across the shelves smashing all the bottles. She threw bottles at the wall smashing the framed pictures and exploding booze all down the walls. She smashed the glass drinks fridge, she pushed the computer monitor off the bar and pulled over the cupboard housing the PC and amp ripping them all out of their wiring. She completely wrecked the bar,
I rushed down the stairs to find the girl absolutely pissed out of her head, completely hysterical, sitting in the middle of the wreckage of my bar, screaming and crying with snot and tears running down her face and matted into her hair. She had destroyed my bar, in one insane moment, she had trashed the place.
My barman Kenny had stood by and watched the whole thing uselessly. I couldn’t really blame him. He wasn’t paid to put up with this kind of shit and frankly, I didn’t know how to deal with it either. As I stood there, staring in horror at the wreckage of my place, I couldn’t help but consider the juxtaposition., on the one hand I had heaven upstairs, two cute naked girls in my bed with a big bag of drugs and the invitation to sex and, on the other hand, the sight in front of me, like a vision from a fucked up nightmare, A smashed up bar, broken glass and spilled booze everywhere, furniture turned over , appliances smashed, and this fucking maniac sitting like a drunken demon in the middle of it.
Now the question I have to ask anyone who wants to judge me is this. What would you have done? What would you do if you came downstairs to find this absolutely hysterical destructive goblin smashing up your home and business. “Not get myself into this mess in the first place, you idiot” is a smug but honest reply to which I can only put my hands up but, again, what can I say, I did and I was. My bad.
I have been over this in my mind time and time again over the years, replaying the events and considering what else I could have done and I have no hesitation in saying that I acted correctly and I would do the same again and so would anyone. I could do nothing else.
I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. She struggled and fought like a possessed banshee. I restrained her as best I could. I grabbed a handful of hair and I held her arm behind her back and I shouted at my barman to open the door. I marched her to the door and I simply threw her into the street where she collapsed in a heap. I pulled the door closed behind her, locked it and took a deep breath.
She wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. Now things were completely out of my control. She started banging on the door trying to get back in. A crowd formed. I don’t know what she told the crowd, whether she encouraged the belief that I was in the wrong or whether the police, who were already looking for an excuse to shut me down, simply made that assumption and ran with it. I will never know
There was a knock on the door. It was the police, two cops. I opened the door and let them in. I tried to explain. I pointed to the scene of destruction in front of them. “You do”. The cop said. “You do this”. He was blaming me for the damage and he wasn’t interested in listening to any alternative explanation. My barman tried to intervene, tried to explain, bless him and the cop turned and yelled at him in Khmer, telling him in no uncertain terms to shut up and stay out of it. He had his story, nothing was going to interrupt it.
One of the cops grabbed my arm and marched me out into the street, ignoring my pleas to allow me to put on shoes. I had walked maybe 2 steps from the bar when I felt a punch to the side of the head, then another and another. I I went down under blows and did my best to curl up and protect myself from the punches and kicks that were raining down on me. It was all very blurry and it all happened very fast but I recall the police joined in, I remember glimpsing the colour of police uniforms as they swung, punching me several times in the face.
Somehow I managed to get to my feet and I made a beeline back to the bar. The two cops chased after me and tried to stop me. Later I thought about that, I was fleeing from a lynch mob, what did they intend to achieve by stopping me reaching safety? I don’t think the cops wanted me dead. Rather I think they joined in with the mob as a way of demonstrating to the crowd that they were one of them and perhaps avoiding the crowd turning on them.
I made it back to the bar with the cops hot on my tail. Once again they grabbed me and, after a struggle, marched me, still barefoot, into the street. This time the crowd had been dispersed and I made it to the police station which was literally over the road.
From the moment I entered the police station, it was clear that the police narrative had been accepted. The duty policeman had to be restrained from attacking me, and took great pleasure in handcuffing me as tightly as he could. I knew it was over. I was way over my visa and it was only a matter of time before the cops figured that out and kicked me out. Part of me was relieved.
I was never charged with anything. My only “crime” was a visa overstay and that was not a criminal offence. The girl never tried filing any charges, though the police wanted her to. She vanished and I never saw her again. After a night in the cells, I was taken to a detention centre near the airport where I was locked up while I waited for the embassy to sort my son’s passport out, then after about 3 months of 23 hrs a day solitary confinement, I was reunited with my son, put on a plane and sent packing.
Following my arrest, the police spun this story of how they heroically “rescued me from a mob” According to this story, the one repeated here, I was in the street beating either a waitress, my wife or my girlfriend, when my angry neighbours decided to teach me a lesson. The police intervened and heroically saved me from certain death. I particularly like how this story not only damns myself but at the same time portrays the local sangkat as heroes too.
.Variations on this story were quickly picked up by local media including this website which ludicrously claimed the girl was in a coma. The Phnom Penh Post too repeated the police line almost word for word. A few regional websites also picked up the story and repeated the police line. I was sat in a detention cell for 3 months but not one of the journalists or bloggers who wrote about me bothered to ask me for my side of the story.
As is well known, KIR the former owner of this site had a personal axe to grind with me after being thrown out of my bar and ensured this site flamed me mercilessly while locking me out and ensuring I couldn’t defend myself. Most damaging of all, an Australian expat “journalist” called Bronwyn Sloan who I had fallen out with years earlier, took my misfortune as an opportunity for revenge and, in the spirit of kicking a guy when he’s down, ensured the story was picked up as widely as possible. I have no hard feelings. They are both dead now. I’m not.
The truth is, getting thrown out was the best thing that could have happened to me. Well, perhaps I could have got by without the kicking from a lynch mob. But leaving undoubtedly saved my life. If I had stayed, I would have died.
I want to be clear. In the end, only one person is responsible for the mess I got myself into and that is me. It was my choices, my vices and my selfishness and hedonism that was behind every misfortune that befell me. There are no excuses, no attempts at mitigation. No one is to blame, only me. I am the author of my own fucked up story and it I own it
I’m a different person now. That morning, upstairs, in bed with my two cute yabba whores, was the last time I touched meth or any drug. Leaving the country, completely removing myself from the toxic environment I was in, was the single most effective technique for getting clean. I heartedly recommend it to anyone attempting to kick a habit. I just stopped. I did it easily, permanently and instantly. I never looked back. These days I live very quietly. I don’t even drink. I do however; still ride a motorcycle that is a habit I picked up in Phnom Penh that I will never give up.
The events I have written about above all happened a long time ago and I have no interest in rehashing them beyond the account I have given. I won’t be responding to posts or questions about it. . It is as honest and accurate an account of what happened as I can remember. I hope it puts any misunderstandings, deliberate or otherwise to bed once and for all and, if not, at the least I hope it provided an entertaining story of days gone by. It is what it is.
Peaceman
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- Lucky Lucan
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Great to hear from you Peaceman. Everything you wrote lines up with my earlier post. You getting a bit mashed lined up with the birth of my son who is now 14 and huge. I had to step away but I always supported you, as many others did. Peter was a vindictive twat at the end of the day, and all that vitriol likely led to his demise. Everything you didn't want to happen to Phnom Penh has happened, it's still a mess but all that Singapore style clinical shit has infected the place. You wouldn't recognize it anymore. One good point though is that the COVID thing has led to about 90% of foreigners deserting the place so a whole lot of places are closed and it's kind of back 20 years again. All the best to you and your family.
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Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Thank you Peaceman that was a great read and very well written. It is often the case a chance to kick a man when he is down is easy for those not involved. CCTV may have helped but probably not available at the time or indeed thought of as necessary.
May I ask, after deportation how did you manage to get your son over? difficult enough if married but presumably you had to do that from England. having read some other comments and links I understand you raised him well in England and he is thriving. I wonder if he ever googles you he will find these articles and posts besmirching your character. I would imagine you have already had these difficult conversations.
Well done and I applaud you for changing and being a dad. Nothing but respect from me, honesty and changing oneself for the better is an admirable thing.
May I ask, after deportation how did you manage to get your son over? difficult enough if married but presumably you had to do that from England. having read some other comments and links I understand you raised him well in England and he is thriving. I wonder if he ever googles you he will find these articles and posts besmirching your character. I would imagine you have already had these difficult conversations.
Well done and I applaud you for changing and being a dad. Nothing but respect from me, honesty and changing oneself for the better is an admirable thing.
Few people make it out of Cambodia stronger and better than they were when they first entered. Peaceman, you have my respect and I’m happy that you’ve managed to turn your life around.
Love the attitude. Well done.
Love the attitude. Well done.
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What are these waves if you could pin them down more? To me they might be the following:Guest wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 3:27 pmThis thread amply reflects the maxim that a place adapts to its people. My memory of most of the bars cited were that they were shitholes, but of course well frequented by the first two waves of expats who liked shitholes. And they were run by shits.
Now we are in waves three and four of the expat cycle. Waves one and two are either dead or gone home or licking their wounds living penurious lifestyles in some shack in the suburbs. Waves three and four want the type of places Miggles wants and is giving them.
Type 1. Foreigners who had been here in the colonial period or during the Sihanouk Regime or had worked for organizations in the 1980s.
Type 2. Foreigners who moved here post 1989 for business and during the UNTAC period till the late 90s.
Type 3. Foreigners who didn't move here till the wars were over in the late 90s. Me for example - I waited till the coast was clear.
Type 4. Foreigners who came here after the place had been developed enough to supply almond milk and beard cutting services, post 2010. These people largely disappeared in the early 2020s.
Type 5. Foreigners who can actually manage living here, a tiny proportion of the pre-COVID "expats" as a lot of foreign immigrants style themselves.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
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The reason it took so long is that they both had to depart at the same time. Reading some of these threads is so weird. A whole lot of people come here and seem to have have no idea what the underlying scene is.lakeside wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 1:10 amMay I ask, after deportation how did you manage to get your son over?
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
thankyou LL I wasn't aware they left at the same time. As I said some brutal self-reflection and awareness in Peacemans post, not brushing his behaviour aside, Some refreshing honesty. I never met Peaceman, but from his eloquent posts I wish I had, maybe pre meth times but who can say hand on heart they wouldn't descend into some kind of madness at the brutal killing of their love. I cannot pass judgement from what I have never fortunately experienced. I can imagine my reaction may have had many endings but a descent into crazed behaviours would no doubt have been one option under the same circumstances.Lucky Lucan wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 1:26 amThe reason it took so long is that they both had to depart at the same time. Reading some of these threads is so weird. A whole lot of people come here and seem to have have no idea what the underlying scene is.lakeside wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 1:10 amMay I ask, after deportation how did you manage to get your son over?
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