It’s Khmer New Year this week which, apparently, means the staff of the Daily are to be the only people in the entire city. Think every summer exodus you’ve encountered combined and you’ll have something starting to approach Phnom Penh during the holiday. To wit: the Ministry of Tourism just announced that every single guest house and hotel around the country is booked. You’ll need some cajones-sized grain of salt to get that down, but a pretty fair indicator of just how massive the holiday is. Everyone goes to their homelands. If you don’t have a homeland, you go to someone else’s homeland. If Phnom Penh’s your homeland, you still get the hell out of dodge. NGOs shut down, street stands vanish, fancy cafes gate-up, for three whole days the dailys quit printing. Uh, except one.
Hope the Post kids are enjoying Kep. We’ll be here, begging statements and throwing down stories, laying out pages. Expect a lot of “so-and-so could not be reached for comment” in this week’s pages.
