Phnom Penh Street at Night

Phnom Penh Street at Night - Chris Coles

Phnom Penh's come a million miles since the Khmer Rouge and Year Zero but it's still a city with an edge, especially at night. Entire buildings and city blocks are often dark and unlit, sidewalks and streets in disrepair, piles of garbage are strewn in every direction. A small group of "Big Men" have their Mercedes, Toyota Land Cruisers and Lexus SUV, but most of the people who inhabit Phnom Penh grind away on almost nothing, living day to day, no real savings, no prospects, a daily darwinistic struggle for low-level survival .....with just a faint glimmer of hope far, far away, on a distant neon horizon.....

Street Corner Phnom Penh Night

Street Corner Phnom Penh Night - Chris Coles

They wait on every corner of Phnom Penh, day and night, one step down from the tuk tuk guys, one step up from the guys who pedal the rickshaws, sometimes sleeping on their motorcycle's seat, using public toilets to shower and shave........hoping to make at least 2 dollars a day......

Bargirl in Phnom Penh Night

Bargirl in the Phnom Penh Night - Chris Coles

Usually from one of Cambodia's rural provinces, usually with at least one son or daughter, unlikely to have gone to school more than 6 years, the ex-husband or boyfriend AWOL, her mother and father subsistence farmers scratching out a few hundred dollars a year.......it all comes down to her, sitting alone in the Phnom Penh Expat bar, hoping to somehow find a way out.........

Neon Karaoke Phnom Penh

Neon Karaoke Phnom Penh Night - Chris Coles

Khmer colors and script can make beautiful neon, no matter how off tune the singer......it's karaoke, it's a hot tropical night in Phnom Penh, the beer and whiskey are flowing, the girls are warm and sexy, everyone's having fun and no one cares.......

Wired Phnom Penh

Wired Phnom Penh - Chris Coles

How many more wires can be hung off a Phnom Penh telephone pole......is anyone keeping track of where they're all going........

Phnom Penh Hostess Girl

Phnom Penh Hostess Girl - Chris Coles

More educated and ambitious than the average bargirl from Cambodia's rural provinces, a Phnom Penh hostess girl can sometimes speak pretty good English, might be going to university or some kind of school, has her sights set on something higher, even a life outside Cambodia..........

Hindu Goddess Kali in Phnom Penh Night

 

Hindu Goddess Kali in Phnom Penh Night - Chris Coles

Kali's but one of the many Hindu gods who, despite a Buddhist overlay, still reign in Phnom Penh.....a combination of creation and destruction without contradiction.........

Khmer Boy About To Be Executed

Khmer Boy About To Be Executed

Were they human, the people who executed this young Khmer boy? Only too human apparently, deeply flawed, very imperfect, following the dictates of "Angkor", never forgetting that they themselves might be next on "Angkor's" mysterious list of those who need to be executed..............

Neon Niteclub

Neon Niteclub - Chris Coles

There's something magical and sensual about neon...the glow, the movement, the curving flow of light.....something exciting lies within......at least that's the promise...

Lexus SUV in Phnom Penh Night

Lexus SUV in Phnom Penh Night - Chris Coles

It probably cost 100,000 plus USD, more than a lifetime income for most Cambodians, much less what they might save.........it's shiny, invunerable, air-conditioned to the max and takes one of Cambodia's Big Men wherever he wants to go.........

Nite Cafe Phnom Penh

Nite Cafe Phnom Penh - Chris Coles

Scattered around the Phnom Penh night, in between the pools of darkness, there are more and more Nite Cafe's......liter bottles of Angkor beer, Khmer pop music, spicy food, snacks, warm and lively conversation,  a re-knitting of the social fabric after so many years of destruction............

Messy Phnom Penh Street

Messy Phnom Penh Street - Chris Coles

Shoddy construction, too much rain, no maintenance, lack of civic pride, no one really knows exactly why the Phnom Penh streets are such a mess......

Sharky Bar Phnom Penh

Sharky Bar Phnom Penh - Chris Coles

More or less alone on an otherwise dark street, the Sharky Bar entrance silently waits.........an eternal watering hole for Phnom Penh's lumbering Expats........

Phnom Penh Graffiti

Phnom Penh Graffiti - Chris Coles

There's plenty of graffiti in Phnom Penh, some of it screams from the inner soul, some straight out of German Expressionism Berlin circa 1930..........

Hungry Street Dog in the Phnom Penh Night

Hungry Street Dog in the Phnom Penh Night - Chris Coles

Always on the lookout for danger, always hungry, never at peace, even when asleep ready to wake at any moment, ready to defend its territory or flee across the boulevard of death if there is no other choice.........

Phnom Penh Nightclub and Tuk Tuk

Phnom Penh Nightclub and Tuk Tuk - Chris Coles

Around each Phnom Penh niteclub, the tuk tuks and motorcycle guys circle like moths and flies, battling each other for access to the light...........

Girl from Phnom Penh Night

Girl from Phnom Penh Night - Chris Coles

She's from the backwoods of Cambodia's northeast, working the Phnom Penh night...........

Phnom Penh Hi-Rise

Phnom Penh Hi-Rise - Chris Coles

Rising high above the rest of Phnom Penh, massive cement condos to be filled with large-screen plasma tv's and newly rich Khmer, business guys from China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, NGO chiefs from North America, Europe and Australia.....

Neon Garbage Truck Phnom Penh Night

Neon Garbage Truck Phnom Penh Night - Chris Coles

Working its way slowly through the trash-filled streets, the neon lit garbage truck grinds along, the garbage men carefully sorting through everything, looking for plastic, metal, anything of possible value......leaving behind as much as they take.......

Phnom Penh Night Market Street

Phnom Penh Night Market Street - Chris Coles

It's after midnight, the street market's finally closed, leaving behind a few scavengers, a couple of street dogs, some stray cats, lots of rats and in every direction random piles of garbage and trash......

Nagaworld Casino Phnom Penh

Nagaworld Casino Phnom Penh - Chris Coles

The gigantic Nagaworld Casino is filled mainly with gamblers from China.  It sits by the river, like factory for Chinese guys, cash and Khmer girls........in a country where most people scratch by on ten or twenty dollars per week if they're lucky, the gamblers and girls go through millions every night.........

Walkabout Bar Phnom Penh

Walkabout Bar Phnom Penh - Chris Coles

Home base for some of Phnom Penh's veteran Expats, cheap beer, hi-carb Western food, raw Khmer girls from Cambodia's poorest and most rural provinces...

Street Dog Sex Phnom Penh

Street Dog Sex Phnom Penh - Chris Coles

Stuck together in the middle of the street, unable to de-couple, growling, baring their teeth, whimpering, not a whole lot "romance" or "fun", mostly just grinding necessity and instinct...

"S" Mercedes on Phnom Penh Sidewalk

"S" Mercedes on Phnom Penh Sidewalk - Chris Coles

A shiny new "S" Mercedes parked on a ratty Phnom Penh sidewalk, its owner's impunity on full display.........

Trash and Shuttered Shop Houses

Trash and Shuttered Shop Houses - Chris Coles

One day the French style detailing on the shop houses on either side might somehow be restored, maybe a beautiful new shop house will rise in the vacant lot and the pile of garbage, trash and rotting cement will disappear.........

Night Street Phnom Penh

Night Street Phnom Penh - Chris Coles

Not much traffic, kind of quiet, the chatter of the motorcycle taxi guys and melancholic Khmer love song drifting through the hot tropical night..........

Young Khmer Man about to be Executed

Young Khmer Man about to be Executed

One of the hundreds of thousands of young Khmer men executed by the Khmer Rouge....for no real reason...of no value.........expendable......."Angkor" put his name on a list...........

Khmer "Big Man"

Khmer "Big Man" - Chris Coles

There are many Khmer "Big Man" statues scattered around Phnom Penh, none of them smiling..........

Phnom Penh Nitelife Street

Phnom Penh Nitelife Street - Chris Coles

Two lines of Expat hostess bars, all pretty much the same, tuk tuk and motorcycle taxi guys hustling, the occasional click of cue balls, a mellow rock track drifting through the thick night air..........

Phnom Penh Night Market

Phnom Penh Night Market - Chris Coles

It's late but the night market's still open, at least some of it....piles of Cambodia fruits...a few rats scuttling through the trash.....