Off the Rails in Phnom Penh: Into the Dark Heart of Guns, Girls and Ganja

As most of the other reviews listed already reveal, "Off the rails in Phnom Penh" is an excellent book which describes and analysis the expats life in the capital of Cambodia in a brilliant way. The most important reason for that is, that Amit Gilboa doesn't watch the scene in a distant and theoretic way, but takes part for himself. Therefore this book is written very personally and this makes the reader to get a very genuine even intimate imagination of what is really going on. The often simple and uncomplicated writing style also contibutes to this aspect. The main thing I want to make clear, however, is that this book is very likely to be misunderstood. If the reader doesn't know anything about South East Asia and especially Cambodia, he or she will probable get a totally wrong view about this really beautiful country and its people in particular. You must never forget that the book describes the way, only a part of the expatriates live. Their lives are dominated by guns girls and ganja and the people who make their living with any of these, are usually not considered to be average citizens and honourable people. The thing I want to point out is, that after reading this book, the uninformed reader will have the very impression, that in Cambodia everyone is running around with his guns shooting and that everywhere you are stumbling in brothels for 2$ "shags" with fourteen year olds. Although the book provides some minor hints, that the protagonists are only a special kind of expats, the prevailing impression, the reader gets is that the whole cambodian life and its society is about guns girls and ganja and this is not true!!The purpose of my writing is not to blame the book or to deny the facts. Reading this book was great. I have rarely enjoyed reading a book so much. When you have been to Cambodia you know how life is going on there and how the friendly the Khmer people are. Besides you know how it is like in Phnom Penh and that Phnom Penh and the rest of Cambodia are completely different. You know at least something about the countries horrible past and how the people are still struggling to live with these haunting memories. So being well informed about the situation in Cambodia and especially in Phnom Penh, reading this book is great and I can only recommend it to everyone interested in this amazing country. But without all these insights you are overwhelmed by so many unfamiliar problems and facts, that you simply will get a very wrong impression of Cambodia and its people which they do not deserve at all.

Read it for fun. Think about it, and you'll find much more. Like a lot of first person accounts, the best part of this book is the river of insight that runs beneath the storyline. Bought the book in the airport at Phnom Penh, then spent time in Siem Riep and Phnom Penh, and found that the book served two purposes - it entertained, with the story of the dissipated expats; it also provided insights into Cambodian (and Vietnamese) culture that served me during the rest of my trip in Southeast Asia. What insights? The contrast between Cambodian resignation and the for-its-own-sake hustling of the Vietnamese; the "stuck" in one historical time period of both countries (Cambodia is still "ruled" by the Pol Pot regime through memories; the US still rules Vietnam through historical obsession.) And many more. Just as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is about drugs at one level, and American culture at another, so too is Off the Rails an exploration - however apparently oblique - of the cultures of Southeast Asia. And for those who believe the book to be Cambodian bashing - I found it to be more of an indictment of stupid expat tricks. And the government does sell it at the airport...

When I was in Thailand getting ready to go to Cambodia in January 1999, a backpacker acquaintance insisted that I pick up this book. The only glimpse I had gotten of Cambodia thus far had been the skimpy coverage provided in an outdated Lonely Planet guidebook--which just seemed full of warnings and barely touched on the issues revealed in Off the rails.By the time my plane was landing in Phnom Penh the next day, I had almost finished the book, and by the time I pulled up a chair at the Last Home Guest House I found myself an immediate part of the very surreal scenarios described in Gilboa's book.Sitting at the dinner table watching, ironically, The Killing Fields (on satellite TV) with a totally offensive, yet amusing group of misfit ex-pats--somehow it was all "okay" in Cambodia...to talk dirty, to be a chauvanist, and be completely politically incorrect. I was instantly a part of the twisted dialogue going on around me and oddly enough, I enjoyed my companions and they enjoyed me. There was a self-proclaimed "dirty old man" from Alaska who took me out to shoot an AK47 and made me wear his NRA hat while I did it. He constantly teased me for being a "liberal feminist". Then there was a Bostonian with a bulbous nose who sat and drank and made horrific land mine jokes, and a young, off-kilter German with a large gut who hated backpackers in general but accepted me instantly. In the afternoons they'd all take off on motorbikes for the brothels and we'd reconvene around the dinner table in the early-evening. It didn't matter if I approved of them or not. I wasn't there to fix Cambodia or to point out the ills and evils perpetrated by the foreign community. I was just there for the experience--good, bad or ugly, guns, girls, ganja and all.All along I felt like I was a character in scenes similar to those described in Off the rails and I admit, I was vaguely attracted to things bizarre and dangerous. Damn if I wanted to miss anything. I walked away from the whole Cambodia experience with a sense of its strangeness--perhaps one of the weirdest moods I've ever felt in any country I've been to. But it was Gilboa's book that helped me to see behind the scenes, and that insight kept me alert, fascinated, intrigued and semi-alarmed as I encountered among the ex-pat community, the very realities he described.Anyone who truly explores Cambodia, the beauty and fantastic history of Angkor and the ugliness and sad truth of the killing fields and Tuol Sleng, will likely be interested in exploring the ex-pat dimensions exposed in Off the rails--a requisite reading experience for anyone bound for, been to or remotely interested in Cambodia.

I just visited Phnom Penh for the first time. This book pretty much sums up the life there amongst the expat (mid-to-lower rung) crowd. If you are planning to go, read this book first, have fun and don't worry too much. I never perceived danger from the native Cambodians, however, there are quite a few British soccer hooligan types running amuck. Gilboa's writing style is talented and sincere. The tales he tells are all there for you to see if you visit Cambodia.

As a Thai raised in Bangkok and educated in NYC, I thought I had seen it all. But working in Phnom Penh threw even me for a loop. What's great about Off the Rails is that it captures the anarchy that Phnom Penh is full of. And Gilboa captures the essence of the sexed out, drugged out foreigners that we see all the time in Thailand and who now have "discovered" Cambodia. Off the Rails doesn't dwell on the mundane aspects of Phnom Penh, but goes straight to the heart of the story. I read the book in one sitting. It's funny some of the "professional journalists" (who haven't published any books on Cambodia) on this site complain about the writing. But the straightforward style works really well for this story. I suppose it wasn't written like (yawn) the New York Times would have. But maybe that's the whole point. I do wish that Gilboa could have included more about the Cambodians. Anyway, I hope he writes another book, but this one about the terrible things that go on in places like Thailand's own Pattaya.