Street 51

Street 51, early evening, 1AM

New Year nears. A perfect excuse for talk of auld lang syne (times gone by,) and so I indulge. In the following I mean only to note some of the changes on Street 51 over the years, not imply (as would be cliche in expat reminiscences) that it was somehow better ‘way back when,’ (even though it was.)

Street 51 in Phnom Penh, at least the short section between Streets 154 and 174, is an ‘entertainment center’ as the nearby hotels like to say – a couple of blocks of bars, clubs, a few eateries and more bars - a 'bar street' reminiscent of a Sukhumvit soi. And the Heart of Darkness was the start of it all, the seed from which the Street 51 bar scene grew, planted in the early 90s and now in full blossom, though not exactly fragrant.

In the beginning (1993) the Heart of Darkness was the only bar on a dark block of Rue Pasteur (Street 51) - a small one-shop open-facade place next to a couple of brothels. The old French Colonial Police Headquarters sat opposite, but otherwise it was a quiet block of daytime shops and houses. Inside the Heart, the walls were flat black, Doors, Hendrix, Stones and the like on the CD player, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, a betel box of ganja on the bar, beer from an esky and the same three guys behind the bar every night. There was a duct-tape patched pool table in a small back room that required a short stick for the near side. "No Dancing" was spray painted in large letters on the poolroom wall. And in fact there was no dancing at the Heart.

Back then during the monsoon season Street 51 would flood every time it rained. I have fond memories of plowing through shin-deep water after work, past the old police HQ and stopping at the Heart, which sat comparatively high and rarely flooded. I'd check in a couple times a week for a smoke and some chess with the bartenders. On weekend evenings it was the place to go (in fact one of the few places to go) in Phnom Penh - frequented by the embassy and NGO crowd, English teachers, journalists and the few tourists that happened to be in town. It had something of a 'notorious' reputation and was on more than one embassy no-go list, but for the life of me I could never figure out why.

Heart of Darkness, New Year Eve, 31/12/99

Heart of Darkness, New Year Eve, 31/12/99

Heart of Darkness, New Year, 1/1/00, Samnang

There were no soldiers, regular trouble makers or much in the way of dodgy dealings, at least by Cambodian standards. It wasn't that kind of crowd. There were a couple/few regular prostitutes, but that was it. Sure, there were people sitting around smoking pot but that was, for the most part, the hardest drug in the place, and back then it was de facto legal in Cambodia anyway. I used to imagine that the bar garnered its notorious reputation, not from anything that actually went on there, but from its dark name, the town it was in and the imagination of travel writers who were afraid to go anyplace truly notorious (like the Cambodian night clubs.)

The Heart slowly expanded over the years, growing two shops wide in 96 (absorbing the brothel) and eventually closing in the front and adding air-con. The brothels of 51 were all gone by the late 90s and the second bar I recall on the street, in 96 I believe, was the Duck Tub a couple of doors down from the Heart. They did semi-regular live rock - the only place in town at the time. After the owner was killed in a tragic traffic accident, the Duck Tub became the AK-47 briefly, then Huey's (if I recall correctly) and eventually Howie's which it still is today. Beginning in the late 90s other bars opened along that couple of blocks - some of the earliest being Club 51 which became Shanghai within a year, and the Walkabout, formerly the Pasteur Hotel.

By the early 00s the Heart started taking on a clubbier atmosphere, it expanded to three shops, changed its look, music and ultimately its clientele. The decor went from rattle-can basic to Khmer baroque, it became a dance club, no pot, no rock, more cocktails, drawing clubbers, travelers, young locals and Khmer bad boys. Around that same period, especially after the 2003 elections, more small bars, many of the hostess variety, opened along the same block, eventually filling out most of the street and stretching around the corner. The old colonial police station was finally torn down 4 or 5 years ago and replaced with the Golden Sorya Mall a couple of years later where Pontoon Club (Phnom Penh’s most popular foreigner disco of the moment) opened its doors last year like the proverbial cherry on the top of the Street 51 sundae.

The street was now officially booming.

Street 51 is a totally different place - a different crowd, a different look, a different atmosphere. Though the Heart isn’t my kind of place anymore, I’ve been generally pleased with ever growing choice of bars and clubs on 51. Yet these last couple of years the street seems to be taking a bit of a mean turn.

I have always felt safe on Street 51, or at least as safe as on any tourist street in town. And there have always been beggars and of course the occasional punch up, drunk drivers, trashed backpackers and such. It all goes with the bar business. But the other evening, for the first time ever, I felt unsafe on 51.

It was the end of the night, admittedly quite late - 4ish - when I left my last bar. I wanted to buy food at a burger stand 80 meters away. In that 80 meters, over the next 10 minutes, a couple of Middle Eastern guys tried to pick a fight with me, 2 drunken luxury cars weaving through the intersection at 60kph narrowly missed me, a tuk-tuk driver told me to ‘fuck off’ because I politely declined his offer of a ride or a prostitute, a parade of infant bearing beggar women and half a dozen glue sniffing children pawed and moaned for money, two people offered to sell me drugs, and when I finally got to the food stand a 6-year-old tried to pickpocket me while I ordered my dog and ribs. I sat with my back to the wall as I waited for the food. A tourist girl vomited in the middle of the street in front of me and a motorcycle crashed trying to avoid her. Down the street near the Heart a commotion began. Some sort of fight, drawing a crowd. I went for a look.

A barang and a Khmer guy were having at it. The barang was big. His friend was trying to stop it. A barang standing next to me in the crowd started taking photos with his phone. A Khmer girl ordered him to stop. “You cannot take photo. No photo of Khmer fight barang!” she barked. He didn’t respond so she repeated herself then continued, “I am Khmer! I tell you what to do. You not stop, I take camera. I am Khmer. I tell you, stop!” Inspired by her words, I took out my phone to film it too. This is what I got. That's her, in the pinkish clothes and light hair, bouncing in and out of the commotion. 

I’ve seen most all of these things on 51 before – fights, pickpockets, glue sniffing kids, aggressive drunks, moto crashes, rude tuk-tuks, the beggars, druggies, etc., etc. – but not all within 80 meters and 10 minutes of each other. That was a first for me. It gave me pause.

Street 51 really does seem a bit notorious these days.

A passing encounter

Bangkok. Out of the hospital with a clean bill and no required follow-ups. Not quite what I was but a helluva lot better than I could have been. I'm done with them and almost home.

Feeling tired and weak and a bit beaten up by the doctors, but nevertheless past it, I decided to make a night out, recoup some strength, if in attitude only. I began at a Soi 4 bar, perchance talking to an old (35ish) Thai taxi girl with whom I had one of the most disturbing conversations I've had.

I think she was trying to talk me up, hoping that I'd become a customer, but she spewed so much hatred, such unrelenting bile for everybody and every kind of person, that she literally made me feel physically ill. Any other time I would have been able to take it in stride, perhaps knock her down a few pegs, but my weakened state left me vulnerable.

One of the reasons I went to the bar was to try to relax and buck up a bit, put on a light, listen to some music, watch some people, get into a better frame. I just wasn't ready for her. Not that she directed any of her venom at me - after all, I was a potential customer. But no-one else was spared.

She began when I entered, harshly forcing some other (younger, prettier) taxi girls to relinquish their choice streetside seats to me, referring to them as "buffaloes." Granted, as a paying customer I was entitled to the seat, but I wouldn't have asked them to move, taxi girls or not.

I sat down.

She plopped down next to me and immediately began about the 'half-brained idiot farang bar owner' who lets these "useless buffaloes" do what they want. She went on…and on.

Trying to change the subject to something completely different, I asked about a katoey fortune teller that used to sit on the sidewak in front of the Dynasty Inn a few doors down. A deck of cards, a candle and a kerchief on the pavement - he was there for many years and I noticed in my last couple of visits that he had disappeared. I thought maybe he had moved. To be honest, I have no particular sympathy for katoeys and probably even something of a prejudice against them, but would never dream of wishing harm on somebody who had done me no harm. And this particular guy (girl) had always been kind to me. He spoke decent English and turned the cards and told my fortune a couple-few times over the years, doing a pretty good job of it. Anyway, when I asked about him she told me bluntly and with something of a smirk that he was dead - "dead of AIDS," she enunciated.

I felt an immediate rush of sadness. I knew this guy, or at least who he was. She went on to revel in it a bit, telling me how he deserved it because he was a katoey, how all katoeys deserve it, "butt-fuckers" that they are. I pressed for more info, received little, and in hindsight, I'm not sure she was telling the truth anyway. It may have all have been an exercise in wishful thinking.

She then went on to attack, in turn, the stupid Khmer beggars, the job-stealing Burmese, the thieving Vietnamese children who sell flowers on the street and, of course, the "smelly Muslims" that inhabit Soi 3. With a big smile she used my almost empty beer bottle to demonstrate how she would crack the skull of an 8-year-old Vietnamese 'match-girl' who was working the street nearby. And even though I went from a polite smile, to defending these people, to a blank stare, to a disgusted stare and finally quite obviously just looking away trying to ignore her, I don't think she ever got the idea that I was anything but enjoying her vile banter. I guess I should have just laid into her, but really wasn't up for a fight. That's not why I was there.

In the end, after only two beers, I called for my bill, paid the exact amount, and left. As I was leaving she followed, proffering the standard lilting "where are you going?" and a sweet voiced "come again," probably hoping for a tip or an offer to have her join me, but I wouldn't/couldn't even look at her.

I went on to better places and better people and made a pretty good night of it.

I have no moral to this story or conclusion to offer, just a vaguely sick feeling from the encounter, slowly fading as the hangover wanes and my strength returns.

Zeppelin Bar

On first sight the bar is just about as plain as plain can be. On second sight too.

A shoebox of a place, deep and narrow. Simple wooden bar, aluminum stools, some boothish tables with padded wooden benches. A basic selection of beers and spirits - Lao, Tiger, Angkor and the like. Another glance around reveals a bit more trimming - a few rock & roll posters - Kiss, Led Zeppelin and ELP - the Stars and Bars emblazoned with a Lynyrd Skynyrd skull & crossbones tacked high, some splats and stars adorning the walls. Still nothing to write home about, at least quite yet. Elbow up to the bar or stretch back into one of the booths and the service is right there, often with limited English, but earnest and ready to please, hinting at the homey space this is.

Zeppelin Bar has been well more than a decade in Phnom Penh, a truly well-hidden gem. Until a few months ago blessedly unknown, lost in little corners of the city until its recent move to bar-busy Street 51, but for years frequented by only a few - those who could find it, those who knew the secret and selfishly (but understandably) tried to keep it that way.

This is a music bar. Let me repeat, a music bar. Specifically, a rock & roll bar. You won't find any taxi girls or hostesses in Zeppelin. Or any bobbing headed Xters. Or sex tourists or single malts or the snooty wine & spa crowd. Or any pretension whatsoever beyond what it is. This is a music bar, a rock & roll bar. No trance, no techno or house or nu rave or any other sort of electronic drivel. Nothing post-80s. Such 'music' shouldn't even be mentioned in this place.

Zeppelin is Mr. Jun's, a crusty old Taiwanese rocker that been in the Land of the Khmer since the days of UNTAC. Back in the 90s he brought his teenage collection of 2000+ pristine R&R vinyls to Cambodia and made a bar of them here in Phnom Penh. Much more a rock&roller than a barman he sits quietly, almost invisibly, tucked in the corner at the back of the bar, surrounded by his albums, drinking Chinese tea from a thermos, chain smoking cigs and playing 60s, 70s and 80s rock & roll like he's in his living room. One of those guys I remember from my youth - the kind that always handled records edge only, carefully dusting them before needle touched vinyl, lecturing about piling albums versus standing them. The kind that never played anything from AM radio. A connoisseur. A man that knows his shit, and knows no playlist. A tutorious aficionado of a severe musical genre, spinning choice B-sides and whole albums, the rare and obscure, stuff before-they-were-anybody, and even a few classics so you don't get lost, all with the subtle crackle and hiss and wonderful tonal depth only vinyl can offer.

He leafs and pulls one from the shelf, scans the jacket counting tracks and places album gingerly to turntable. "Ahh, listen to this one," he mutters.

Make a musical request, an appropriate request, not some electro-lint but rock & roll, preferably something heavy. He's got it in there somewhere. Make it a difficult - first album Kansas, the 17-minute version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - and you may get a smile, but he's still got it in there somewhere.

Unlike the shallow commercial overcrowded Heart of Darkness up the street, this really is a place with heart, the bar is filled with it - the sparse sincere decor, the attentive staff, the blue air and musty smell of beer, the lovingly selected music wafting across the room - this is somebody's home, a rock&roller's home.

Many will miss the whole thing, the ambiance lost on them. They'll see a non-distinctive little watering hole with no air-con, no dancing and old-man music. They'll last for a drink and leave. Their loss. But for those with ears, let them hear. Zeppelin Bar is a rock lover's must. A place to sip your drink and smoke your smoke and lose your soul in rock and roll. The best damn bar in Southeast Asia as far as I am concerned.

(Zeppelin Bar is located at #109C Street 51 next to the Walkabout Hotel. It opens at 5PM in the afternoon and doesn't close till very very late, often after 4AM. Drinks are very reasonably priced and munchies are available including some pretty good Chinese dumplings, boiled or fried.)