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

Amit Gilboa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 1998

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"There is a beast in all of us, but in Cambodia that beast is let out into the open," says Amit Gilboa of the country he calls a "fiction writer's dream". The Bangkok-based Gilboa's debut book, Off the Rails in Phnom Penh, is not a work of fiction, however, even though it reads like one. It is a racy, disturbing, fantastic, and sometimes funny account of the exploits of a motley group of expatriates in 1990's Phnom Penh, who spend their days visiting $2 brothels, eating ganja-topped pizzas, snorting heroin and shooting rockets at firing ranges. -- South China Morning Post, April 4, 1999. By Kavitha Rao

As a literary genre the travel narrative is often genteel to the point of yawn-inducing boredom. Maybe that's why first-time author Amit Gilboa's recent book, Off the Rails in Phnom Penh, is causing such a stir in Southeast Asia. Just one glance at the subtitle--"Into the Dark Heart of Guns, Girls, and Ganja"--tells you his hellish holiday in Cambodia will unfold more like a gonzo rant from Hunter S. Thompson than an erudite essay by Paul Theroux.

Gilboa spins a fascinating if somewhat fractured tale about a beautiful country whose people have been ravaged by decades of turmoil.

With its mix of random jottings, bizarre character sketches and diary entries, Gilboa's account plunges readers into the center of the Khmer storm. -- Time Magazine, February 1, 1999. By Jeffrey Ressner

The book is phenomenal. On a scale of the amount of muck raked it must come very high in the annals of reportage... The book...is by turns attractive, repulsive and frightening but never boring. I found it hard to put down, and will never forget it. -- The Nation, Bangkok, August 30, 1998. By Simon Johnstone

The debut work of young writer Amit Gilboa is a helter-skelter low-life travelogue through that neighboring madhouse named Phnom Penh. A book easy for old hands to dismiss as immature or nave, it's invigorating, exciting, packed full of fun and infectious youthful exuberance. -- Bangkok Metro Magazine, September 1998. By Ian Crawshaw

About the Author

Amit Gilboa was born in Israel, grew up in America, and currently lives in Bangkok. Over the past 10 years, he has studied in China, entrepreneured in Viet Nam, worked and researched in Cambodia, and written in Thailand, as well as working as a consultant in Washington, DC. Gilboa is fluent in Chinese, Khmer and Hebrew, and proficient in Thai and Vietnamese. While in Cambodia, Gilboa developed customer service training for Royal Air Cambodge, began a call-back partnership, and sold airline tickets, as well as teaching English and learning Khmer. In addition to his recent book about Cambodia, Gilboa has published numerous articles in North American magazines and newspapers. Gilboa is a 1991 graduate of Wesleyan University.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: Asia Books; 7th edition (July 25, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9748303349
• ISBN-13: 978-9748303345
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Travel > Asia > Cambodia

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