Hunting For Head

The tourist section at Phnom Penh's Russian market can seem a little seedy.

Stepping off the well-lit steet and into its gloomy depths, one can quickly become disorientated within just a few turns in this maze of stalls and vendors.

As we plunged into this dark warren, Tan would make sudden and irratic stops to inspect a maddening array of items. Each different commodity has it's own little ghetto, and it was all here.



Copyright Tan and Trev 2005


Copyright Tan and Trev 2005

Some were devoted solely to indulging the more traditional tourist pursuits with items like t-shirts ("I survived Phnom Penh", "Tintin in Cambodia," "Danger: Landmines"), Angkor paperweights, small Buddha statues, beautiful paintings and ornamental carvings available for a fraction of what you would pay at an upmarket gallery or boutique in the West.

Hunting for a bargain? Then find a fake Rolex for $30? Or grab a bootleg CD's pirated from the today's popstars at $3 each? This is the land of the rip-off.

But we were on a different mission. We push onwards, ever onwards. Our
goal was clear. We were on the hunt for a little head.