Goodbye to Phnom Penh’s ‘sleaziest bar’
Posted: Fri May 06, 2016 10:07 am
From todays PPP.
Goodbye to Phnom Penh’s ‘sleaziest bar’
Fri, 6 May 2016
Audrey Wilson
When the metal gates of the Walkabout Hotel on Street 51 were closed for the last time on April 21, it was one of the few times they had been shut in nearly 20 years.
The hotel and bar – known for its seedy crowd, Joker Draw tournament and abundance of sex workers – had operated 24 hours a day, including national holidays, since it opened in 1998. The closure marks another lost Phnom Penh expat institution, and a nail in the coffin of the city’s “Wild West” image, according to longtime foreign residents and business owners.
“Phnom Penh is not the same – it never will be,” said Adam Parker, the editor of Bayon Pearnik, a foreigner-friendly magazine distributed for free since 1996. The publication’s offices were once located above the Walkabout, with a front-row view into the din below.
“The office looked down into the bar, with a wall of glass windows,” Parker said this week. “It was like a spectator sport, looking down on the menagerie downstairs . . . The world’s strangest zoo.”
For years, that “zoo” involved fairly usual suspects: foreign men and the Cambodian sex workers they came to meet. Patrons were free to rent the rooms upstairs. But in a city where prostitution wore a thin veil, the Walkabout still stood out in its upfront operation.
It also contrasted with the growing number of hostess bars nearby: the sex workers were “freelancers” – there was never a bar fine, according to Parker.
“Simply, it’s a place that lots of women went to meet men,” said Mike Hsu, the owner of Sharky Bar, which opened in late 1995. The Walkabout was once the last stop on a well-worn route that included Sharky and the old Martini bar, he added.
After a law that cracked down on prostitution – and associated activities (advertising, transport, accommodation) – went into effect in 2008, commercial sex work was rebranded as “entertainment” and relocated: to karaoke and hostess bars, a move critics argue put women at greater risk. Remaining brothels were shuttered, and bars like the Walkabout – or, at one time, Sharky – fell into a grey area.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-weeke ... aziest-bar
I never really spent any considerable time in the walkabout and think in the 9 years I have been here only went in a handful of times. However it is a shame that such an iconic place is gone for good.
With Cathouse and Martini closing, what would be the longest serving bar now? Sharkeys? When did Shanghai open?
Goodbye to Phnom Penh’s ‘sleaziest bar’
Fri, 6 May 2016
Audrey Wilson
When the metal gates of the Walkabout Hotel on Street 51 were closed for the last time on April 21, it was one of the few times they had been shut in nearly 20 years.
The hotel and bar – known for its seedy crowd, Joker Draw tournament and abundance of sex workers – had operated 24 hours a day, including national holidays, since it opened in 1998. The closure marks another lost Phnom Penh expat institution, and a nail in the coffin of the city’s “Wild West” image, according to longtime foreign residents and business owners.
“Phnom Penh is not the same – it never will be,” said Adam Parker, the editor of Bayon Pearnik, a foreigner-friendly magazine distributed for free since 1996. The publication’s offices were once located above the Walkabout, with a front-row view into the din below.
“The office looked down into the bar, with a wall of glass windows,” Parker said this week. “It was like a spectator sport, looking down on the menagerie downstairs . . . The world’s strangest zoo.”
For years, that “zoo” involved fairly usual suspects: foreign men and the Cambodian sex workers they came to meet. Patrons were free to rent the rooms upstairs. But in a city where prostitution wore a thin veil, the Walkabout still stood out in its upfront operation.
It also contrasted with the growing number of hostess bars nearby: the sex workers were “freelancers” – there was never a bar fine, according to Parker.
“Simply, it’s a place that lots of women went to meet men,” said Mike Hsu, the owner of Sharky Bar, which opened in late 1995. The Walkabout was once the last stop on a well-worn route that included Sharky and the old Martini bar, he added.
After a law that cracked down on prostitution – and associated activities (advertising, transport, accommodation) – went into effect in 2008, commercial sex work was rebranded as “entertainment” and relocated: to karaoke and hostess bars, a move critics argue put women at greater risk. Remaining brothels were shuttered, and bars like the Walkabout – or, at one time, Sharky – fell into a grey area.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-weeke ... aziest-bar
I never really spent any considerable time in the walkabout and think in the 9 years I have been here only went in a handful of times. However it is a shame that such an iconic place is gone for good.
With Cathouse and Martini closing, what would be the longest serving bar now? Sharkeys? When did Shanghai open?
