Ten Years in Phnom Penh: Why I Never Left (and Probably Never Will)

I arrived in Phnom Penh in January 2016 for a six-month NGO contract. I was 29, recently out of a long relationship, and wanted to do something completely different from Cape Town corporate life. That six-month contract turned into two years, then five, then ten. I'm now 39, married to a Cambodian woman, and running a small consulting business. I can't imagine living anywhere else.

The Phnom Penh I arrived in is almost unrecognizable from today. In 2016, BKK1 had a handful of cafes and one decent supermarket. Now it's packed with specialty coffee shops, international restaurants, co-working spaces, and boutique shops. The riverside has been transformed. Entire neighborhoods have sprung up where there were rice paddies. The energy of watching a city evolve in real time is addictive.

I met my wife, Channary, in 2018 at a friend's birthday dinner. She's a Cambodian architect who studied in Singapore — smart, funny, and deeply proud of her country. Through her, I've experienced a Cambodia that most expats never see: family ceremonies, provincial weddings, ancestor worship, and the deep social bonds that hold Cambodian families together. Our son, born in 2023, is growing up bilingual and bicultural.

The cost of living has increased over ten years, but it's still remarkable. In 2016, I rented a one-bedroom apartment for $250. Today, our family apartment in Toul Tom Poung costs $650 — still less than a studio in Cape Town. We eat out three or four nights a week. Our son goes to a Khmer-English bilingual school. We save money every month despite a single-income household when Channary was on maternity leave.

Professionally, Cambodia has been the making of me. The NGO work led to consulting, which led to starting my own firm helping social enterprises scale. The professional opportunities here for someone willing to adapt are extraordinary. There's less competition than in developed countries, people value experience, and the economy has been growing at 7% annually for most of my time here.

The challenges are real. Traffic is horrendous and getting worse. Air quality in the dry season is genuinely bad. Bureaucracy can be maddening. The gap between rich and poor is stark and sometimes uncomfortable. And there are things about Cambodian culture — the hierarchy, the face-saving, the indirect communication — that still catch me off guard after a decade.

But the rewards outweigh everything. The friendships I've built — both expat and Cambodian — are the deepest of my life. The daily small pleasures: morning coffee at my regular cafe where the owner knows my order, evening walks along the Bassac River with my son, Friday night dinners with friends from six different countries, weekend escapes to Kampot or Kep.

People often ask if I'll go back to South Africa. I think about it sometimes — my parents are aging, I miss the mountains, I miss the food. But then Monday morning comes and I'm on my motorbike riding through golden morning light, palm trees swaying, someone grilling noodles on a corner, and I think: no. This is home now.