The sight of supercars and pet lions shows how much things have changed in Cambodia in the past 25 or so years.

I remember my first flight into Phnom Penh's Pochentong International Airport in 1995. As we landed, I looked out across the scorched bare fields and thought Pol Pot had really done a number on the country.* Of course, it was the middle of the hot season. When I flew in later in the year, there was a rich tapestry of rice fields as we came into land. Those fields consumed a Vietnam Airlines flight (VN815) in September 1997 when it crashed short of the runway in poor weather.

When I checked in at the Cambodiana Hotel (the only acceptable hotel choice at the time), The Killing Fields was the in room movie of the day. Meetings were often held in the hotel. Several Government officials lived in the hotel in those days. You generally just ate in the hotel. By the third day, you had eaten everything on the menu. The two restaurants and room service shared the same limited menu items.

Occasionally, meetings would be held in fairly run down mansions such as the former French Ambassador's residence which apparently had then become Pol Pot's HQ and then the UN HQ before assuming the function of the offices of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). If you didn't keep the hotel car at a meeting, you would need to flag down a motorcycle to take you back to the hotel. From memory, it was USD 1.00 for the return trip.

On one of my trips, the first set of new traffic lights in Phnom Penh was installed. The first escalator in a shopping centre was some years away (2002).

Legal agreements needed to be comprehensive as the laws in many areas were deficient or non-existent. You could register a company at the Ministry of Commerce but there was no company law.

The practice of first-in-time in registering trademark applications was a fluid concept if you were a business person with sufficient influence within the government. The government would also roll out tanks to protect said business person's hotel during the 1997 coup. And he wasn't sanctioned when he shot out the front tyre of a Royal Air Cambodge Boeing 737 after disembarking. (That was an interesting discussion with the Chairman of RAC.)

Intellectual property enforcement was in its infancy. Sheraton had some success, getting a hotel using its name to change to "Sharaton" but the "McSam Restaurant" logo bore a striking resemblance to McDonald's.

The wealth disparity in Cambodia was evident back then but has only grown over the intervening years. The seeds of that growth were planted during and immediately after the UN period. The difference in 2021 is that wealth and conspicuous consumption are on constant display, particularly among the elite's offspring. One need look no further than the Supercars of Phnom Penh Instagram page.

Pet lion seized from home in Cambodia capital after appearance on TikTok

* It is estimated that the Pol Pot regime killed around 25% of Cambodia’s population between 1975 and 1979.

June 2021

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