My apartment has a fabulously grand view of the Mekong River & Buddhist temples at the back windows. But the entrance windows face the slumps where the poorest, dirtiest Cambodians reside in Phnom Penh.
Street kids beg for food in front of lavishly expensive restaurants.
The kids pick on leftover grubs off the filthy roads as the well-to-dos cut into their medium-rare steak with polished silverwares.
The grand Sorya shopping centre with the multi-storey car parks and branded goods is situated next to a street, bee-lined with petty traders trying to hawk their wares.
Imported brands sold expensively occupying the same shelf-space as the locally produced cheap brands.
Luxury vehicles with tinted windows and gold-platted door handles drive alongside dilapidated motorbikes that are stained with grease and dirt.
Little traders are selling watered-down gasoline in recycled Coke & Pepsi bottles right next to Caltex pump stations.
Beautiful serviced apartments complete with security guards and parking attendance stand erect next to tiny make-shift shacks with no proper toilets.
Perfectly coiffed and smartly dressed well-to-dos walk next to scruffily dirty masses on the roads with tattered clothes.
Grand villas with manicured lawns and large swimming pools stand next to two-dollars-a-shag shacks with mamasans peeping out the windows.
The street kids are laughing gleefully, playing in the flood waters while the well-to-dos sulk like sourpusses in their wet boots.
In the land of such stark contrasts, I find myself always hovering in between.
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