Six years have past since I last visited Phnom Penh on that sultry Halloween day in 2006, and, like myself and personal point of view, much of the city has undergone a noticeable amount of change. When I wrote about the dusty Cambodian capital last, I painted a picture of a place rife with "machine …
Category: Indochina
Seeing Saigon from the Backseat
It’s dusk in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it is still locally known, and the haze of the last ounce of light from the crimson setting sun is smothered in smog. The thousands of motorcycles and scooters that clog the streets of Saigon turn on their headlights lighting up the entire city in …
Decadence and Leisure in Laos
The sun slowly begins to make slow silhouettes out of two children playing beneath the red sky on the Mekong River. To the Laos (pronounced Lao by the locals) side of the river there is a large sand bar which swells the shallow stream of water. On the side which divides Laos from Thailand, a small mountain …
The Road to Siem Reap, Cambodia
The following article appeared in The Nation Junior, a magazine based in Bangkok in association with The Nation, and is recreated here for archiving purposes. As my nostrils filled with the stink of garbage and feces, the taste of vomit began to seep into my mouth. The border crossing from Thailand into Poipet, Cambodia is landmarked by …
Marijuana, Machine Guns, and Mayhem in Phnom Penh
The following article appeared in The Nation Junior, a magazine based in Bangkok in association with The Nation, and is recreated here for archiving purposes. Phnom Penh, Halloween, October 31, 2006 Phnom Penh is an anarchist’s wet dream, and I but a kid in a playpen. I step off the bus into the middle of a mob …
Continue reading Marijuana, Machine Guns, and Mayhem in Phnom Penh
Justin Calderón 