Phnom Penh: Happy Pizza, Dodgy Bars & Crazy Money

It’s very rare for us to eat pizza, it’s just not a food we ever seem to choose, even though these days it’s one thing which is available just about everywhere in the world. For those who like to, you may well be tempted by the “happy pizza” signs on A-boards outside many of Phnom Penh’s restaurants. Well, if you like a liberal helping of marijuana in the tomato base beneath your chosen topping, then “happy pizza” is for you, because that’s exactly what’s in the recipe. All drugs are absolutely illegal in Cambodia, including marijuana, yet somehow these pizza places occupy a grey area law wise and continue to operate untouched by the authorities. Maybe money changes hands somewhere.

How you pay for your pizza is another matter altogether because money in Cambodia is not straightforward. The two currencies of Cambodian riel and US dollar exist alongside each other, and keeping an eye out for outrageous conversion rates hidden in menu tariffs is all part of the “fun”. Most – but not all – prices are in dollars, but if you pay in dollars, you’ll get change in riel, and those punishing conversion rates kick in again in the calculation of your change. It’s a good job everything is cheap here because you soon give up checking too closely.

There are added complications. Cambodian currency has no coins and even the smallest denomination is in note form – it’s the 100 riel note which is worth about 2p. In no time at all I have a giant collection of notes which makes my wallet burst at the seams and pushes Michaela’s handbag to its limits. What’s more, offer a tuk-tuk driver or coconut seller a 50,000 riel note (about £10) and they’ll often shrug and say they can’t change it. And if you do decide to operate in US dollars, you will soon find out that any note with the tiniest tear, or pen mark, or even a deep fold, will not be accepted anywhere. It’s worthless because the Banks won’t accept them. Just to complicate it one more level – if you do choose dollars, the ATMs will only dish out 100 dollar bills. Unless you pay a hotel bill or tour operator with it, you don’t have a hope in hell of finding anyone who can change it…except professional money changers who will sting you so much that you soon go back to using riel.

Are you wondering how the US dollar came to be an everyday currency here? It’s because accession to the throne has historically been a matter of dispute between different claimant families, and a coronation would often be followed by the new king declaring that all bank notes featuring the image of the previous king were no longer of value. Six times in the second half of the twentieth century the cash in the hands of ordinary people became worthless overnight. The dollar was obviously more reliable.

As for tonight, there’s something in the air, something Michaela notices before I do. 

“Have you realised that we’re drinking in a street full of dodgy bars?”, she suddenly asks.

I hadn’t, but as I now look around I can’t believe I didn’t spot the clues. On the next table is an Aussie guy, somewhere around the same age as me, sharing drinks with a pretty young local girl about 40 years his junior, in her little black number, the two of them overtly and embarrassingly tactile. Across the road the waitresses are taking the “micro” bit of micro skirts to a new level, literally. Next door to them is the “Pretty Girls Bar”, and a few doors up is the best of them all: the “Step Wife Bar”. Now, given that a “step brother” is someone who looks like he might be your brother but isn’t really, then it doesn’t take a leap of imagination to guess what happens in the “Step Wife Bar”…does it.

One thing that’s nowhere to be seen in Strip Joint Street is a Buddhist monk, but they are certainly everywhere else in Phnom Penh, floating through the streets and boulevards in their bright orange robes at all times of day. Buddhist monks are of course an expected sight in this part of the world but there’s still an occasional glimpse which makes outsiders like us do a double take. Two oversized orange monks squeezed into a tuk-tuk; monks wearing sunglasses and soaking up the sun on a park bench; monks chatting or surfing the internet on an iPhone; monks sipping frappe with jean-clad “civilians” in Starbucks. All perfectly ordinary things of course, just makes us look twice when it’s a Buddhist monk doing it.

On Thursday May 4th there’s a different monk thing going on altogether as large numbers of orange robed Buddhists gather together for a walking procession which makes its way from Wat Phnom along the riverside boulevard to Wat Ounalom. Today is Visak Bochea Day, celebrating the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha, all of which purportedly happened on the same date in different years. For some reason this date changes year on year, and, equally mystifying, is celebrated on different dates in different countries, but here in Cambodia in 2023, it’s today.

Phnom Penh boasts several cool bar- and restaurant-filled streets in different parts of the city. Along the riverfront and in the streets close to it are numerous joints with Khmer and western cuisine, and to the south, beyond the Independence Monument, is Rue Bassac, or Bassac Lane, or to give it its recently acquired moniker, the Bassac Quarter. Now recovering from the barren pandemic years, Bassac is a tight alley of a street with its bars housed in quaint looking, semi run-down buildings which ooze character.

Our favourite little enclave though is Street 172, a laid back street not far from Central Market where visitors and locals congregate to quaff cheap beer on the bar stools beneath whirring fans and talk about life. This slightly down-at-heel street would not be everybody’s cup of tea. It’s unmistakably a backpacker destination where hostels sit above the bars while the food of the world – Khmer, western, Chinese, Indian, Nepalese, Italian, pizza, sushi, burgers and even Ethiopian – can be bought without moving more than a few yards. 

Away from the shining skyscrapers, away from the riverfront with its green and watered gardens, away from the shopping malls and the towering headquarters of international Banks, and even away from the manic and untidy locals’ markets, it’s the likes of Street 172 which perhaps capture best the spirit of the new Phnom Penh – a place where people’s backgrounds are irrelevant, where everyone is welcome, where life is there to be enjoyed without so much as a glance over the shoulder.

Only at the site of the killing fields and at the Genocide Museum are you given that glance over the shoulder; otherwise this is a spirited vibrant city enjoying its present and relishing its future. Somehow Phnom Penh is doing precisely what Youk Chhang said: piecing together that broken glass and not dwelling on how it came to be broken.

It’s a fascinating, absorbing city with a horror story which, if it wasn’t for the tourist opportunity which the story presents, may well not be dwelling on its history at all.

As we gaze out across the blue waters of the confluence and feel the intense heat of the afternoon sun on our faces, planning for our early start to catch the morning train to Kampot, we reflect on a capital city which has surprised, delighted and appalled us over the last five days. And maybe taught us some lessons about life, which is, of course, one of the biggest reasons we choose this travelling lifestyle.

Experiencing a city like Phnom Penh has made a lasting impression and probably even shifted our understanding of the world a little. And it didn’t take a happy pizza to do it.