Phnom Penh trip report (2023 edition)

Construction reports for Koh Pich (the fake Paris island), BKK1 (the booming expat area), and Phnom Penh City Center (the city rising out of a drained lake).

My first trip report for 2023 begins in Phnom Penh. This was a shorter trip than usual as it was a visa run from Vietnam that was timed to meet my travelling sister. There was also some unseasonal rain which took out a chunk of my time. It was raining in Southern Vietnam as well, and this unusual January rain even made the news. I was in a new urban area when it started raining, but I didn’t have my laptop with me so I just kept walking in the rain.

At the risk of repeating myself from my previous updates, I can’t believe how much Phnom Penh has changed in the last few years. I’m still taken aback by how much the skyline has beefed up. There are also plenty of stalled and abandoned projects around the city. I happened to be in Phnom Penh the week that China let its citizens travel again. Many of the projects in Phnom Penh were contingent on Chinese buyers, so I will be interested to see the status of these projects in a year’s time.

[Morgan Tower and The Peak.]

Rather than trying to visit as many places as possible, I picked three areas in the inner city area that are seeing the most amount of construction.