nagaworld and christmas

From Christmas in Cambodia

Nagaworld. It's the huge casino built at the far end of Sisowath. It's a real live casino hotel aspiring to Vegas, though I'm afraid to say that it's more in that slightly-off-the-strip-category. But for Cambodia, it's an edifice, a beast, and all the amenities are inside. There's a cigar bar with imported Cuban and Dominican varieties, which I've availed myself of more then once. There's five or six restaurants of the high end white tablecloth variety, featuring Western, Korean, Chinese, Thai, and good ol' Khmer cuisine. There are hundreds of luxury rooms with things like LCD televisions and rain showers, and there are lots of perky girls in tight outfits to serve you freeish beer while you're losing all your money on Blackjack.

From Christmas in Cambodia

It's a huge investment project by one of the enormous firms that are just beginning to enter Cambodia. The clientele are mostly Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese. Khmers are theoretically not allowed to gamble, but there seems to be a lot of looking-the-other-way going on with that one. The company that owns it is incorporated in the Cayman Islands. You know, how one does.

From Christmas in Cambodia

Nagaworld reminds me of home in a big way. I'm from Northern California and grew up in the West. My parents are not gamblers but we still spend a lot of time in casinos for one reason or another. I like the sound of them, the people watching, the completely ridiculous decor. And being from California, our casinos are also 89% Vietnamese and Chinese, with the corresponding shockingly good restaurants. I go into Nagaworld some times, walk around the gaming floor around the aggressively un-real painted blue sky, and think, "Ah, Lake Tahoe! Ah, Las Vegas, but slightly off the strip! Ah, Reno!" Then I remember where I am when I go back outside. It's almost poignant.

From Christmas in Cambodia

Nagaworld completely went all-out for Christmas this year: I've never seen a gingerbread house of such sheer enormity. They have a stage with near constant live-christmas caroling going on, they have a "Christmas Pastry Wonderland," they have gigantic shiny gold deer bigger then a man, they have at least 200 Christmas trees, they have everything. I'm surprised no one slapped a Christmas hat on an apsara but I may not have been looking hard enough.

atm christmas

From Christmas in Cambodia

I'm not entirely sure why, but all the banks here are absolutely exploding with Christmas cheer. Maybe they want us to be filled with the generosity of the season as we grudgingly take out our ever-dwindling funds.

I am happy, by the way, that Phnom Penh has a bunch of functioning and reasonably safe ATMS. I will always remember with a jaundiced eye that Indian ATM that shocked the snot out of me on a rainy day. I grabbed the front desk guy, took him over, and pointed to the ATM with a damning finger: he touched it, also got BZZAAPPEED, and stared at it for a moment. Then he shrugged. "Oh well, madame," he said. Oh well.

santa of indignation

From Christmas in Cambodia

The same inflatable Santa is making the rounds this Christmas. I was at the Central Market the other day to buy shoes, since my last pair of shoes has finally given up the ghost-I mean, we're talking about flapping soles, rendering me sad-hobo like and tragic in the streets of Phnom Penh- and I went down there and noticed a few stalls selling Christmas decor, to Khmer customers. Little Charlie-Brown like faux trees and lots of sparkly stuff. Faux snow. (IT'S EVERYWHERE). And that same inflatable Santa.

There's an enormous, apartment building sized Santa Claus on Monivong. This pleases me inordinately. (If I was 15, I would be plotting its destruction in the name of capitalist insurrection, but thankfully for everyone, I'm not anymore).

festivus clothing

From Christmas in Cambodia

Christmas clothes for kids on sale along Sisowath. I asked a Khmer lady I know what she thought about Christmas. She said she hadn't really considered it until she started working with Westerners. "It's mostly for the teenagers, the kids," she said. "Me...I'm old." (She isn't).

This may be case-in-point. Give this 5 or 10 more years and Christmas will be thoroughly entrenched in the hearts and souls of Cambodia's youth.

Either that, or there are going to be more then a few kids in Cambodia forced into these outfits for humiliating photo ops this year.

From Christmas in Cambodia

I would like to add that, for the record, I own the Santa hat on top. And verily, did I go out drinking in it, and more verily, did every moto guy I walked by scream MERRY CHRISTMAS at me, and verily, did a British guy almost steal it but (in the sight and knowledge of the Lord), I did get it back. And it smells sort of like whiskey now.

the star that rose in the east (great deals on soy drink)

From Christmas in Cambodia

She's a pretty girl.

From Christmas in Cambodia

The 24 Hour Shop employees are all wearing staff-issue Santa hats. They're playing Christmas carols at really high RPM in the shop too. A group of Cambodian schoolboys were in there today, drumming off-beat on the counter top along to what sounded like a Vietnamese (in English) cover of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Some people have said that this is the most Christmas they've ever seen in Phnom Penh. Guess they'll know all the words next year, too.

man with tree

From Christmas in Cambodia

He looked up at me a second later. He gave me a, "Why the hell are you taking a photo of me why I am eating?" sort of look, an inquiring sort of look.

The only logical response was, "Well, I'm this weird girl who takes pictures of random European men eating dinner in front of a particularly sparkly Christmas tree in Phnom Penh and I'm not judging your lifestyle at all, and I mean, you made the tableux just about perfect, so thanks, you're a mensch, and..."

I in fact just made a weird face and scurried away. But the thought was there.

christmas in the girlie bars

From Christmas in Cambodia

Street 104. It's one of Phnom Penh's girly-bar streets. You've got the Pickled Parrot, Zanzi-bar, and a bunch of places with cutely euphemistic names. The girlie bars around here cater to a lot of forigners, and they really kick ass when it comes to Christmas decorations. Buckets of tinsel and ribbon? You name it, they've got it. Shiny ornaments and tinsel and Santa hats with your gin and tonic? Bring it on, baby.

They're all about the same inside. There's a bar, a television playing pop videos, and a whole lot of girls. You don't necessarily have to be on "a mission" to hang out at these places - I'm a heterosexual female and have had more then a few drinks in these environs. In an odd way, I like girly bars. I don't get that many chances to interact with young Khmer women my age. They are most definitely here. They're often pretty interested in me. Where I'm from, what I do, why I'm in Phnom Penh. They're usually nice girls who speak good English. And the people watching at these establishments: choice. (One Russian guy! 20 Khmer girls!)

From Christmas in Cambodia

I'd be the last person to judge what they do for a living. If I was 22 years old, poor, and living in Phnom Penh, I don't doubt that I'd be doing the same. They're good people in a very difficult situation, or at least a healthy number of them.

From Christmas in Cambodia

Phnom Penh has a permanent population of what are usually termed "sexpats" for reasons that should be really, really obvious. Many of them seem to spend most of their waking hours at these bars, moving from one to another in a circuit known only to themselves. I've talked to a few of these guys before - they're often pretty amiable - and they're usually some sort of IT or business type from the US or Britain who decided to chuck the rat race, cash out, and move to Phnom Penh. And spend all their waking hours in girlie bars of one sort or another. A lot of these guys end up opening restaurants or bars to make some cash on the side. They often seem to end up with one (sometimes two) steady girlfriends. Some say the life expectancy of a sexpat is pretty low. I haven't been here long enough to be able to tell. Some of them look lost as hell. 100 mile stares. Somehow I'm not surprised.

This is supposed to be Christmassy, so I'm just going to say "Mary Magdalene" and stroke my beard thoughtfully for a second.

Ok? Done.