Cambodia 1992

'A brilliant snapshot of the time.’ Dan Littlewood.

‘If you visit Cambodia today, read this first and then take it with you. And then be confounded by how much has changed.’ James Marsh

‘This is rough raw and the antithesis of the glamour that too often has been used to portray the country.’ F Marain.

In 1992, I caught a plane to Phnom Penh. I had no idea what would confront me. Most of what I knew was defined by the horrors of the Khmer Rouge and the promise by the UN of a new beginning. Elections were due to be held in 1993, and then the country would return to some semblance of normality. (If such a thing has ever existed in Cambodia.) I wanted to find out what it was like now, and did indeed the people believe that they had a bright future ahead of them.

This book is a record of what I found. By and large it was horror, pessimism, and a deeply troubled people. This was not a happy place and one still mired in its tragedy, one that was both due to outside interference but also of its own making.

Only the young smiled.