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Off the Rails in Phnom Penh: Into the Dark Heart of Guns, Girls, and Ganja | 
 enlarge | Author: Amit Gilboa
Publisher: Asia Books
Category: Book
Buy Used: $26.64
Used (3) from $26.64
Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 552091
Media: Paperback
Edition: 7th
Pages: 206
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 9748303349
Dewey Decimal Number: 959.6
EAN: 9789748303345
ASIN: 9748303349
Publication Date: July 25, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Very good condition
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Phnom Penh is a city of beauty and degradation, tranquillity and violence, and tradition and transformation; a city of temples and brothels, music and gunfire, and festivals and coups. But for many, it is simply an anarchic celebration of insanity and indulgence. Whether it is the $2 wooden shack brothels, the marijuana-pizza restaurants, the AK-47 fireworks displays, or the intricate brutality of Cambodian politics, Phnom Penh never ceases to amaze and amuse. For an individual coming from a modern Western society, it is a place where the immoral becomes acceptable and the insane becomes normal. Amid this chaos lives an extraordinary group of foreign residents. Some are adventurers whose passion for life is given free rein in this unrestrained madhouse. Others are misfits who, unable to make it anywhere else, wallow in the decadent and inviting environment. This unparalleled first-hand account provides a fascinating, shocking, disturbing and often hilarious picture of contemporary Phnom Penh and the bizarre collection of expats who make it their home. As they search for love in the brothels or adventure on the firing range, Phnom Penh Journey follows them into the dark heart of guns, girls and ganja.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 Same old, same old--which is too bad December 10, 2008
I was pleasantly surprised to find that much of Off the Rails in Phnom Penh was interesting and engaging. This is not to say that the reader does not have to wade through long passages in which Bilboa experiences or feigns astonishment that drug abusers with poor work ethics and social skills might possibly have sex with underaged prostitutes and engage in other antisocial activities. This would have been fine except that Bilboa feels the need to quote these people and regale the reader with their repetitive exploits. Had he not, and instead summarized this content, this could have been an excellent book; as it stands, portions of the book are excellent and thought-provoking, but sandwiched between rather repetitive and offensive content that is neither gripping nor shocking, but merely tedious and annoying, Bilboa has a good point to make about how the bizarre lifestyles of some of his expatriate friends mirror the absurdity of life in Cambodia in the 1990s. This would be a more striking point if his friends' behavior weren't, in fact, typical of a certain segment of travelers and expats who seem to think that if they are not in their own country, and they have money or power, anything goes. That's not bohemianism or authenticity, it's just colonialism, and it's no less objectionable for being enacted by individuals than by governments.
decent enough June 26, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
this writer seemed to whore his way through Cambodia back when that was the main reason that expats were living there. His story is interesting enough and has some anthropological value though he is not a very charming writer. He describes it all with such prosaic numbness, not for any literary effect but because he is not really a very skillful writer. Still, for fans of writing about the Asian underworld, this is a good read, just don't expect literature.
 What's the point? May 30, 2006
10 out of 16 found this review helpful
I'm a big reader of travelogues, and after a brief visit to Cambodia, I picked this up to try and supplement my own tame trip to Siem Reap. What I didn't realize until I started reading the prologue is that this isn't a book about Cambodia or Phnom Penh, but rather, as the author explains: "This book specifically focuses on those people in Phnom Penh that live (as judged by 'normal' Westerners) 'indecent' and extraordinary lives." As such, the book doesn't make any pretensions that it is an accurate representation of the city or its mainstream culture. So, there's ultimately little point to reading this unless you really want to learn about the worst excesses of the expat community who lived there a decade ago.
Most of the subjects of this book are so-called "English teachers" (some of whom could barely string together a grammatical sentence) whom the author met during multiple trips to Phnom Penh between 1996-98 and tended to congregate around the Majestic guest house. The exploits of these Swiss, German, Australian, English, etc. men -- most of which revolve around buying sex, often from girls aged 12-16 -- are neither shocking or particularly funny, but merely a depressing window into the worst side of human nature. Gilboa makes it very clear that he finds their activities utterly despicable -- and yet he's fascinated enough to write a book about them, and admits that he can understand the attraction of the lifestyle. The gist of this lifestyle is that on one's lunch break, instead of swinging by McDonald's for a $5 combo meal, you can swing by a brothel and have sex with a beautiful teenager for $2-$5, and then on the way home pick up a huge bag of pot for another few dollars. Whee!
The book is poorly organized and would have benefited from a strong editorial hand to arrange and shape the material. Gilboa alternates between a chronological narrative of his visits to Cambodia and thematic chapters (Lawlessness, Sex, Drugs, Work). There are brief forays into Cambodian culture, history, and contemporary politics, and one gets some sense of the dynamics between the Khmer people and their Vietnamese and Thai neighbors, but this all feels somehow cribbed and secondhand. He admits that he never gets to know any Khmers, and so the book lacks any kind of counterpoint to the small slice of expat men he writes about other than his own perfunctory tut-tutting. The writing alternates between normal narrative writing and journal entries, but the two are so similar in style that it's hard to make out what the distinction is or why its done that way. Some will also take issue with Gilboa's "participatory" style of journalism, which ranges from harmless escapades such as heading to the shooting ranges with the gang and purchasing pot from the open-air markets to the more morally ambiguous "for research purposes only" oral sex he purchases from a prostitute.
In any event, the overall effect of the book is mainly to move the reader to disgust and anger at the actions of a small portion of Westerners who use the third world as a place to setting for lifestyles that (rightly) wouldn't be tolerated in their own countries. The stories of the "outrageous" behavior aren't particularly amusing or insightful, and while I think people have every right to wreck their own lives, that doesn't mean they have the right to exploit and degrade others while doing so. Ultimately, this is a pointless book, there's little to be learned here -- only confirmations of the ugliness of human nature.
 Over-heated and over-rated ! March 7, 2006
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
To the reader,
I'd avoid this book and either go to Phnom Penh myself or read some of the expat blogs about Cambodia.
The tone is pretty sensationalistic, talking about guns, girls and drug-ridden expats exclusively.
The author possibly wanted to be another Hunter Thompson.
He gives lip service to being impartial,saying briefly in the introduction that his descriptions of the expats and Khmers were not meant to imply that all were drug addicts/losers/pedophiles/whores/corrupt.
But after chapter after chapter of lurid descriptions what will the hapless reader remember?
Orgies of cannibus,smack and under-aged bar-girls?
Gun-toting, gun shooting, wife-beating,corrupt Cambodians?
He also does have a PC "holier-than-thou" attitude, never partaking of the bar-girl scene but doing the cannibis smoking route.
His endless trashing of men is suspect, he's either trying to gain a share of the feminist reading public which loves to hear how foul men are or feels guilty himself for being male.
In short if you are an angry feminist who needs more fuel to feed an irrational hatred of men, this is a great book for you.
If you are a rational,sane male read this book with a pound of salt.
Claw
Preachy tone ruins book September 30, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
As other reviewers have mentioned, I was drawn to this book by the title and, of course, the photo on the jacket. The 'Time' quote at the bottom of the cover also helped. 'Like a gonzo rant from Hunter S. Thompson.' But believe me, this book is as far from Hunter as can be. Unfortunately for us, Amit Gilboa comes across as someone who has never seen whores, grass, or misery, and it becomes hard to believe that he is actually a journalist. I would guess that perhaps he is even still a virgin.
When he merely describes, he does have a good eye for detail. The descriptions are generally quite vivid. He has clearly done some research, and in doing that research, very obviously put himself into occasional danger. However, he often strays into judgmental diatribes about the characters he describes. Most of the ex-pat characters, in his words, are 'losers,' and much more than that. He would be better off not telling the reader what to think about these people and improve his writing skills so that we can come to that conclusion on our own.
Hey, Time Magazine! Hunter S. Thompson he is not. A quick, informative read, but on the whole, disappointing.
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