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by Lina Goldberg
10 December 2012

The Walkabout Is Cambodia's Sleaziest Bar

Every year a few tourists are found dead in rooms upstairs at the Walkabout; usually guys with needle marks in their arms or pensioners who’ve saved up and come to Cambodia for one last Viagra-fueled fuck-frenzy with a couple of apathetic prostitutes, climaxing in a fatal heart attack. They can't afford to do autopsies in Cambodia, so that's all technically conjecture, but I'm sure it's pretty accurate.

I'm in one of the most disgusting freelancer bars in Cambodia. "It's like low tide," my Eton-educated companion snidely observes. Gazing out at the flotsam and jetsam of Phnom Penh's expat scene, I'm forced to agree. In one corner, a white guy in a string vest and short shorts crammed hard into his crotch works his jaw as if he's gearing up for the Cumbrian gurning championship. As we wait for our drinks, an ancient man in a wheelchair—clearly invigorated by Cambodia’s easy access to Cialis—is wheeled into the bar by a rough, 40-something working girl in red denim hot-pants.

There are the geriatric sex tourists in white socks and sandals whose rheumy eyes go laser sharp when they hone in on the desperate, teenage hookers whose only other option is working in a sweatshop for $2.50 a day. There are the depressed and underpaid English teachers and the grizzled long-term expats who originally came with UNTAC in the 90s, speak fluent Khmer and will never assimilate back into their home countries.

So when the pot gets big enough, everyone pushes the prostitutes out of the way and scrambles to the bar for a chance to win. There’s something kind of heartening in the fact that there's one thing that can make the taxi girls, the motodops, and the Venn diagram of wildly divergent expat groups overlap in the middle of a hooker bar: a garbage bag filled with money.

full https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/avn8 ... aziest-bar

Art

..in rooms upstairs at the Walkabout; usually guys with needle marks in their arms..

I guess we all have our stories.

Met some interesting characters in Walkabout and heard many stories . Sometimes go there to watch AFL games and change larger notes at the same time. As is usual most women were there to make a dollar and the few operating to support druggie boyfriends.
Bar staff were interesting and had a tough job sometimes when customers had more than their share but wanted more. As stated in the article you may have been surprised at who would turn up for the Joker Draw and it could get very crowded. Saw a couple of winners but most picked wrong and the crowds dissipated in about ten minutes. If you were not in a hurry to leave it was ok but the tuk tuks and mottos ran hot for about half an hour. Many came in just for the draw and left after it was over. The local blokes didn't worry too much on those nights but where protective of "their " customers in normal hours.
I looked on Walkabout as a window of people moving through Cambodia, not special nor wierd just travellers going somewhere.

I think Sophie's was closed by then, so yeah, I guess Walkabout took over the title.

Why was it demolished?

Wasn't it one of the best places to check out in PP?