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Born to Shop
CHARLIE WINTERMAN REVEALS PHNOM PENH’S RETAIL RENAISSANCE
THERE is one city in Asia where the websites and guidebooks almost invariably get it wrong, simply because no publication can keep up with the unstoppable pace of change there. This city is Phnom Penh. This is a place that is oft en – incorrectly and ungenerously – billed as an edgy no-go zone reserved for Th ird World 
diehards; where souvenir hunting is reduced to combing the grimy old markets for a krama, or chequered Khmer headscarf, and the nearest thing to international cuisine is a streetside baguette filled with French processed cheese.
The reality couldn’t be more diff erent. Over the past two years, Phnom Penh has changed radically from backpacker backwater to boomtown. Although the seemingly insurmountable post-Pol Pot poverty cannot be ignored, the mood now is undeniably more positive as new places open up and stability returns to the once-empty dirt streets, now filled with motorbikes and luxury Lexus SUVs owned by government o[fb03] cials.
Few visitors realise that Phnom Penh off ers infinitely better and cheaper designer wear, a greater selection of fine art, and decidedly tastier French pastries than the neighbouring Thai capital of Bangkok – which, in terms of size and modernity, seems like Dallas in comparison.
Nevertheless, Phnom Penh has the added advantages of some excellent eateries, superb civic architecture and immaculately planned streets, most of which lie on a grid system.
Today, this elegant Indo-Chinese city positively brims with distinctive new restaurants, upmarket art and antique galleries, undiscovered spas and fabulous boutiques – many of which use locally made products from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in support of much-needed poverty alleviation projects.
FROM THE START
Phnom Penh is home to one of Asia’s 
most romantic historic lodgings, the Hotel Le Royal. Now managed by Rafles International, the cream-painted colonial property has stood in frangipani-filled gardens for over 70 years, bearing witness to the capital’s immense upheavals. The shopping, even in such a grand hotel, has been a somewhat dismal aff air, but this has all changed recently.
Hotel Le Royal now boasts a delightful pastry-cum-book shop, Le Phnom Deli; 
a top-end Cambodian clothes designer, Romyda Keth, who sells her evening wear globally; and a small but stunning array of Khmer artefacts, courtesy of Vanuatu-born Cantonese artist Judie Wong.
Wong’s minimalist shop, Tiger Lily, opened less than a year ago and sells possibly the city’s finest collection of restored Khmer lacquer, wood, bronze and silver objets d’art. Wong, whose Australian accent betrays her upbringing in Sydney, is herself a trained artist – her linocuts, inspired by colonial floor tiles, are hung around the shop, and her astute artist’s eye for form and elegance means her display cases are filled with unique black-painted betel boxes, voluptuous bronze vessels, turned-wood candelabra and delightful silver Buddhas.
Barely a kilometre away, development along the riverine Sisowath Quay has been rapacious. Where paddy fields and makeshift huts once stood across the Sap River, huge new concrete buildings fill the horizon.
Sisowath Quay itself is home to many of the more ra[fb03] sh restaurants and bars, including the legendary Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia (FCCC). The city’s first and most successful boutique, Orange River, was established by the now hugely successful New Zealand entrepreneur, Kelli Anne Karatau. It has just reopened in a newly decked-out venue around the corner from here.
The FCCC is a modern-day institution where, a decade ago, journalists in crumpled khaki cargo pants, Canon cameras swaying around their necks, crowded the balcony at sundown while AK47 gunfire stuttered in the unlit backstreets. Later, it would be where the tourists came to admire the sunset over the river and savour a wood-fired pizza and cappuccino.
STREETS AHEAD AT 240
These days, a good number of expats (and well-advised visitors) fill the tables of The Shop, a café, deli and cake shop on the popular Street 240. It is the place to find fresh salads, great smoothies and diet-busting European pastries – something the well-off Khmers appreciate from their French colonial heritage.
Street 240 is now pretty much the one-stop expat shopping hangout where you can hop from second-hand bookshops to a delicatessen, or from arty boutiques selling evening wear and accessories to a custom-made jewellery shop, all in the space of five minutes.
Le Lézard Bleu specialises in some of the best contemporary art, Buddha statues and reproduction photographs of pretty Ankorian etchings.
More photography is on show at the new Popil Photo Gallery on Street 19 (which crosses Street 240); this is the capital’s first photo gallery to expose top local talent, of which there is plenty.
Surprisingly, Cambodia rivals most of its neighbours in terms of its reasonably priced wines, and oenophiles will be stunned as they wander around the recently expanded Red Apron Wines. Find this shop opposite the newly opened Mona Lisa boutique, which sells a rather dazzling selection of gold, silver and red Vietnamese lacquerware.
Red Apron has just finished a new tasting annex; here, big-name wines and champagnes cost a fraction of their Thai or Hong Kong prices, with some savings on top-of-the-range labels reaching well over $100 a bottle!
Jasmine, at the top of the street and close to the main Monivong Boulevard, is a quality clothes shop almost hidden behind an old tree. Few can resist the sumptuous silk, lace or organza dresses, blouses and skirts. Shelves drip with gorgeously embroidered or hand-beaded bags, all of which are painstakingly made by hand from Khmer-produced fabrics woven by local women who have had to endure the horrors of tra[fb03] cking.
The Jasmine shop not only provides these women with a skill set but also helps them regain their dignity by giving them a decent livelihood. The shop’s wide range of soft suede or silk shoes goes right up to European size 42 – a blessing for anyone in Asia cursed with large feet!
A couple of doors away is Sap Bay, a small café that also sells a great range of hats, bags, candles and aromatic oils.
Next door, a workshop called Art Steel creates brightly painted steel geckos, while further down the street, Subtyl & Kashaya is filled with a fascinating collection of French-designed handbags, silk items and chic chiff on scarves.
Bliss, a few steps away, off ers a similar edgy style to Jasmine but has a more casual mix of pretty cotton dresses and pants as well as a bafling range of handbags, homeware and bed linen.
A gentle perfume leads customers to the wonderful Bliss Spa, carefully hidden in its own private sanctuary at the back of the shop. Spas are a relative novelty to Phnom Penh, but the superb, newly opened five-suite Asiadée down on Street 282 is also worth a visit if you’re in search of some serious relaxation aft er a long day out.
The pretty Water Lily boutique is a modern Aladdin’s Cave crammed with jars of glittering glass baubles, coloured beads and sequins. This is the workshop and boutique of long-time resident Christine Gauthier, who creates unique jewellery.
One of Christine’s Dadaist “pendants” hangs from a tailor’s dummy – rather than glittering beads, it is composed of blue plastic spoons!
AROUND AND ABOUT
Not far away from Street 240, behind the long-established Java Café, is Sun Dew Design. Its racks off er a small collection of second-hand gear at good prices as well as a range of hats and fashionable handbags, both old and new. The new designs use logos as appliqués and have a funky “art school” edge to them. Original works of art are also sold here.
FINAL FAREWELL
For true shopaholics, the spotless Phnom Penh International Airport provides one last surprise. Here, French, Australian and South African wines are on sale at knock-down prices alongside a myriad of souvenirs. Colourful fans and boxed cooking spices are just some of the great gift s available, produced in Siem Riep by the artists’ collective known as Artisans D’Angkor. Their huge airport store even sells reproductions of some of Angkor Wat’s most dazzlingly seductive statues, many of which were destroyed during the Khmer Rouge regime or pilfered by foreign collectors.
These proud figures are perhaps a fitting symbol of the immense power and craft smanship of the once-great Khmer empire – and its descendants. Today, the Khmer are a nation of young people who are readily embracing the enormous changes that this new chapter in their history will bring: modernisation, revitalisation and the renaissance of a new Cambodia. g
CONTACT DETAILS
Art Steel, 87 Street 240, tel +855 (0)12 890916; Asiadée Spa,16 AB Street 282, tel +855 (0)23 996921; Bliss (Fashions and Spa), 29 Street 240, tel +855 (0)23 215754; FCCC, 363 Sisowath Quay, tel +855 (0)23 724014, www.fcccambodia.com; Friends N Stuff , 215 Street 13, tel +855 (0)12 616102; Friends The Restaurant, 215 Street 13, tel +855 (0)23 426748, www.streetfriends.org; Hotel le Royal, 92 Ruhak Vithei Daun Penh, off Monivong Boulevard, tel +855 (0)23 981888, www.ra.fb04] es.com; Jasmine, 73 Street 240, tel +855 (0)23 223103; Java Café, 56 Sihanouk Boulevard, tel +855 (0)23 987420; Le Lézard Bleu, 61 
Street 240, tel +855 (0)12 804260; Mona Lisa, 408 Street 240, tel +855
(0)12 39683; Orange River, 361 Sisowath Quay, tel +855 (0)23 214594; Popil Photo Gallery, 126 Street 19, tel +855 (0)12 992750, closed Sundays; Red Apron Wines, 51 Street 240, tel +855 (0)23 990951; Romyda Keth (Studio), tel +855 (0)23 217937; Sap Bay, 85 Street 240, tel +855 (0)12 369867, closed Mondays; Subtyl & Kashaya, 55 Eo, Street 240, tel +855 (0)23 992710; Sun Dew Design, 56 Sihanouk Boulevard, tel +855 (0)92 971180; The Shop, 39 Street 240, tel +855 (0)23 986964; Tiger Lily, tel +855 (0)12 837163; Water Lily, 37 Street 240, tel +855 (0)23 986241.
Bangkok Airways flies three times a day between Bangkok and Phnom Penh. For more information, visit www.bangkokair.com
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