Foreign Correspondents' Club, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Our tuk-tuk lurched to a halt beside the fractured sidewalk. The air was thick with dust and heavy raindrops pounded onto the ground. Car horns blared and pulses of Khmer pop music boomed out from packed city bars with bright neon signs. Overlooking the convergence of the mighty Mekong and Tonlé Sap rivers, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club stood like an old duchess.
For many years, the Khmer Rouge purged Cambodia of its politicians, intellects and professionals. Fear had been rife and genocide had gripped the nation. In 1991, the regime fell and correspondents poured into the heart of the capital, Phnom Penh, risking life and limb to send home newsflashes of the atrocities. The Club became a wild-east outpost built by the same barang (foreigners) who struggled to cope with the conditions and craved the luxuries of home.
We climbed the wooden stairs to the restaurant. The walls were lined with monochromatic photographs of barefoot children leaning on rifles and grown men weeping in the street below. My heart was heavy, the terror echoed deep in the frame of the building. The restaurant itself felt locked in time, revolving fans swung from the high ceiling, causing newspapers on wooden rails to flutter beneath. Yet the ochre paint was neat and fresh, the bar was polished and the spotlights were bright and modern.
The waiter couldn’t have been much older than me. The suffering was no history lesson to him, but the roots of a society that he grew from. In only four short years the Angkar (The Organisation) had the blood of 2 million citizens on their hands. If the weight felt by his ancestors had been passed down, he certainly didn’t show it. He, like each of the young waiters darting about, breathed a new lease of life to a building once surrounded by tragedy and fear.
Where fearless expats once nursed whisky, churning out ceaseless reports, a group of bright young tourists took their place. The ambient adrenaline may have dissipated over time but the Club still held its spirit, refreshed and determined. A chalkboard dangled from the ceiling: ‘I start my day with a smile and end it with gin and tonic’.
"...the Club still held its spirit, refreshed and determined"
Water trickled down the dark bamboo blinds, rolled up to allow a view of the drenched pavement. I couldn’t help but feel the city was being cleansed by the rain. The people were embracing the storm, letting it wash the streets clean from their dust. As the lightning lit up the evolving horizon, glasses chinked.
“Choul Mouy!”
The rebuild was a slow process but the forecast was improving.
How To’s
Unfortunately the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Restaurant closed in the winter of 2019 for renovations which will transform it into a new boutique hotel. FCC Phnom Penh is due to open in mid-2021 as a sister to the FCC Siem Reap (https://www.fcccollection.com/phnom-penh/) . You can still currently visit the pop up restaurant on the waterfront, which provides a fusion of Spanish and Asian cuisine.
To reach Cambodia, we flew to Bangkok from London with British Airways. It was then another flight with Bangkok Airways to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We did the similar on the way home, flying internally with Bangkok Airways from Phnom Penh to Bangkok and then flew back to London again with British Airways.
Top Tips
We finished our Cambodian adventure in Phnom Penh after first exploring the incredible Angkor Wat in Siem Reap. You can fly or drive to the capital from here, but the roads and public transport aren’t considered particularly reliable so flight may be the best way! We flew with Cambodia Angkor Air, which was very good, hot food was provided free of charge and seeing the jungle from the air gave us the chance to see the country from a different perspective.
You can really get a sense of the terrors that occurred in the country by visiting the S21 correction camp and Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre (killing fields). This is not a light-hearted day out and is very heavy going at points but something that cannot be missed. Doing this in the daytime before arriving at the FCC for dinner is a good way of tying in the history of the restaurant. If you need something to brighten up the rest of your trip, there is ‘Chhma Catfé’ (cat café) only a 5min walk from the FCC! See https://www.facebook.com/chhmacatfe for more details.