I’m sipping a negroni at a rooftop bar, watching distant neon illuminations come to life because the solar dips over the horizon. Thirty-seven storeys beneath, honking visitors jams herald one other chaotic Friday night time as revellers head out in town, trying to find the subsequent good meal or watering gap to clean away the stresses of the working week.
This scene, surrounded by a sea of skyscrapers competing for airspace, is one acquainted to many bustling South-East Asian cities. However that is Phnom Penh – as soon as the “nation cousin” of the area, a previously sleepy city rising from many years of civil warfare and unrest, and a metropolis traditionally ignored by mainstream tourism.
Whereas by way of customer numbers it nonetheless performs second fiddle to Siem Reap – gateway to the unimaginable World Heritage-listed temples of Angkor – Cambodia’s capital has definitely come a good distance since my first go to in 2009. Again then, the tallest buildings have been the attractive two- and three-storey French colonial mansions that after earned it the moniker the ″Pearl of the Orient″. All of the vacationer exercise befell alongside the riverfront, the place the full of life FCC (International Correspondents’ Membership) was the place to herald the night time.
In full: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/traveller/inspiration/visitors-won-t-recognise-this-former-pearl-of-the-orient-20240712-p5jt94.html
