I shouldn't mention this, - ClaudiAntics

December 22, 2003

I shouldn't mention this,

but what the hell.

I just finished reading a pretty freaky book called Off the Rails in Phnom Penh: Into the Dark of Heart of Guns, Girls & Ganja. This Israel-born American guy, Amit Gilboa, used to live in Vietnam and do loads of "visa runs" to Phnom Penh, and he got to know a lot of the expat crowd there. He published the book in 98 or 99, and a lot of things have changed, but here's a couple of factoids for you:

until 1997, pot was completely legal. You could buy ganja from stalls in the market just as easily as you could get vegetables or shirts

in 1997, before being made technically illegal, 1 kilo of pot would set you back... $20US. Yes, that's one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds

Heroin in 1997 was $50US a gram

I won't even go into the prostitutes, or how you could shoot off military rocket launchers for $35 a go. Cambodia has some beautiful temples, but there's a lot of messed up stuff here too. Some improvement since the book's publication, but still, a lot of messed up stuff.

Posted by Ant on December 22, 2003 12:23 AM
Category: Cambodia

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