The backpacker ghetto January 28
I’m staying in the backpacker ghetto of Phnom Penh - a cluster of guesthouses next to the small lake. Some of the guesthouses are built on old fishermen hut platforms over the water, though I’m staying on a cheaper one just being, on dry land. It’s nice to come down and eat breakfast and sit in the hammocks and look out over the water, though.
There are good think about staying in a backpacker ghetto: good western food, other travllers, convenient internet, and other nicities and conveniances. But there are bad aspects as well: pushy moto drivers who are also dope dealers hang around in droves at all hours, pushing whatever they have to sell. Things are overpriced. Sometimes you get the feeling the locals see you as just one gigantic dollar sign. It feels like almost every conversation is a thinly veiled lead in to a sales pitch.
But I think it’s the dope dealers that bother me the most. They make me angry in fact. I don’t get angry about that many things. There’s just something about having people, one after another as I wakl down the road, aggressively try to get me to buy drugs.
I rode in on my bike last night about midnight, after far too long on the internet writing code and geeking, and all I wanted to do was go to bed. At least five different men asked me if I wanted to buy dope. I had to resist snapping and telling them off. I would have let them have it, but I’ve heard that losing one’s temper onthe street here can sometimes lead to dangerous consequences. And besides, you’re average drug dealer is not a person you want to pick a fight with.