Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(25)
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2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Wanna hear what a Khmer girl thinks about this book? (First, just to clarifyIm not a prostitute and having white skin is not my greatest goal in life). For other readers, I hope they dont make the fatal assumption that this book gives them insight about Khmer people. Classifying people beyond your understanding is a good excuse to avoid getting to know them. Whos primitive and superstitious is all relative, right? The author doesnt really make an attempt to get to know any Khmer people, besides listening to My Khmer girlfriendshe so crazy stories. As for his research at the brothels, it doesnt count! After watching the wretchedly horrible Tomb Raider movie, the stuff that foreigners get away with in Cambodia doesnt surprise me. (If I sat in front of a monk with my legs cross a la Angelina Jolie, my mother would go into convulsions). The ex-pats characters in the book are really lousy people by anyones definition. So the question is, what is it about brown people that make perfectly sane white peoples hearts turn dark all of the sudden? The answer is simply theyre lousy people in the first place. Like gossip columns, stories about girls, guns and ganja make for a good read. Take it for whats it worth. For me, its not a whole lot. It was more depressing that informational. Wished I picked up a book on the Khmer Rouge instead.

If you've traveled through SE Asia and find amusement in those expats who have been on the road a bit too long, marveling at their ability to lead lives without a moral compass or care in the world, this book is for you.

Gilboa weaves funny and well-written accounts of expats in Phnom Penh whom many would regard as having "lost it" --accustomed to recreational heroin use, $2 prostitutes and daily bribery. Many of them cannot readjust back to their old lives in the west, a feeling many a traveler can relate to after having been to such developing places as Cambodia.

The book reinforces the saying that truth is stranger (and I would add amusing) than fiction. Gilboa also describes accurately the comic absurdity and pathetic state that Cambodia is today -- politically and day-to-day life.

Overall a hilarious, lighthearted look at the "wild west" mentality of modern Phnom Penh, with an informing overview of Cambodia's modern political history.

One last note: If you've (a) never been to a developing country such as Cambodia and (b) are scared by drug use and prostitution, you may find this book more disturbing than amusing.

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.

Geographical headline bias to boot, this is a fascinating look into this world of Phom Penh through the eyes of a recurring visitor, who became intimate with westerners living there. It's not just a gonzo journal. The author researched past, recent, and current Khmer history and politics, as well as how things really work in the capital of Cambodia politically, socially, and culturally. His insights are only of his experiences with expats in their own islolated community, who are living in their own exclusive world. (Again), This is not a book about Phnom Penh nor Cambodia, but the lives and experiences and attitudes of some western expats living there. Most of his insights are from these people who've chosen to live in Phnom Pehn. Many stories pique further interest, while others bring thoughts of danger and loathing of the type of people who go and stay in this city for long periods of time. In this context, it is very insightful and somewhat balanced. The author did take time to write in a serious attempt to note his experiences there. There have been claims of exagerration by some after the release of this piece. This can't be proven either way. Many expats in Phnom Pehn are unhappy to have been written about and claim to have been quoted without their permission, and the author I am told is not able to return because of some of the anger caused over this book. Some of the more undesirable elements of the world will no doubt come to Cambodia after reading this book. As of November 2002, there are some writers in Saigon, trying to write about similar things (attempting to duplicate Amit Gilboa) that go on in Saigon, although they are in no way in comparison to what life is like in Phnom Penh. This is an interesting look at the world and the people who choose to live in Phnom Pehn.

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.

A book that delves into what other writers prefer not to discuss which is the dark side of Cambodia from an ex-pat's perspective. Having been to Cambodia numerous times, what he writes about is very much true. The contradictions of horror and beauty, gentleness and brutality, love and exploitation do exist in that battered country. Yes the book does focus on the lurid and sensational but it does capture the surreal quality of Cambodia that makes it magical in both a light and dark sense.

Cambodia and the people within it fail to be easily classified as being good or evil. There's a dark side that lurks in us all but Amit to his credit can see the positive within the people he writes about.

This is not the book to learn about why these things are but its a fairly fun read about what is being hailed as the 90's Casablanca-Phnom Penh. As unique as his book is, there is still much about Phnom Penh that he does not capture or discuss but at least he makes an attempt to describe the on-the-edge lifestyle of what draws westerners into the country. What he does lack is a perspective on what local Cambodians and Vietnamese think but that would be a different book entirely.

Cambodia is my favorite country and aside from the picture photography books of Angkor Wat and the people of Phnom Penh, few books seems to even come close to the impressionsitic nuances of what makes the Country and its people so magical (and that includes the westerners, khmers, and the vietnamese).

What he writes about is not hyperbole or fiction but in his narrow focus is definitely biased in a good sense. I didn't want a dry clinical account but a depiction of the people and events that have created a community that both he and I find fascinating.

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.

Amit Gilboa wanted to write a book about his perverse attraction with the dark side of Cambodia. Firstly, it would seem that Amit Gilboa wrote a high school paper on Cambodia. After reading some real writers takes on Indochina (including the essential 'Dispatches' by Micheal Herr) it was depressing to be confronted with Gilboa's unresourceful vocabulary. If the lack of style in the writing doesn't turn your hair gray with boredom then maybe his incessant tone will. Yes, Cambodia may be morally defunct compared with such 'civilized' nations as Gilboas own United States. However, having just returned from Cambodia myself I am not only disturbed that Gilboa paints such a decedant picture of the country (when there is clearly so much more on offer), but that he obviously relishes and is secretly thrilled by the morally corrupt individuals he associates with. Maybe he experienced some of the events in this book and chooses to distance himself from them through the third person. Maybe he was never near them and has to live viacariously through others experiences. Whichever, Whatever! Cambodia has far more to offer than guns, girls, ganja and Gilboa. Don't go off the rails in Pheno Phen. Just go to Phenom Phen and see for yourself...

As a journalist I have passed through Cambodia many times over the years. I have seen it right fom the poorest pits (both expat and Khmer) to the the most expensive hotels and diplomatic dos. Unlike Gilboa I wasn't looking to exploit it though. I was looking to tell it how it is. Gilboa's book is a shabby sensationalised example of shallow writing that only includes what he wants to include to support his weak, contradictory and badly thought out arguments. As your other reviewer said, Cambodia doesnt need this kind of kicking from an opportunist western wannabee journo trying to make a name for himself. It stinks. For the backpacker types who think it portrays the 'danger' that they love so much in their couple of weeks hanging out at the capitol, have a thought for the Cambodians who have had enough 'danger' and don't need the Gilboas of this world twisting the image of a country that could do with a positive press. Gilboa is on a level with his subjects, only he was just savvy enough to make it pay. Maybe that makes him worse.