Retirement With Life’s Little Luxuries in Cambodia for $1,000 a Month

[ggt]

“More importantly, the Khmer people are a really friendly bunch and you can’t walk down the street without somebody saying hello or giving you a big smile.

I am sorry folks...but this appears to me to be a paid advertisement from the International Living site...

What the people of Phnom Penh really say every few feet..."do you need a ride"...and when you say no...they get pissed off...or they are begging for money...as one walks over the piles of trash that have been blown into piles in the street by the wind...

Try to take a picture with a Khmer in the lens..and they wave you off..."no picture"...

It is rather cheap...as is Thailand and Vietnam...you get what you pay for...

I would not go back there if offered free airfare, room, and board...

Edited December 24, 2015 by ggt

[4737 Carlin]

Rental properties are expensive and poor quality in Phnom Penh. Most of the cheap food is inedible and dangerous. Supermarkets, if you can find one, are poorly stocked and way overpriced. There are no sidewalks, parks, public swimming pools - basically nowhere to exercise. Its also very dirty and polluted - but yeah, you can get by on $1000 a month.

I find most food not only edible, but nicer than traditional thai food.... not as spicey. plenty of well stocked reasonably priced supermarkets.. cheap as spirits. don't need to rent a house when you can stay in nice hotel for !5.00 per night. are we talking about the same pnohm pehn?

I've lived here in Phnom Penh for 2 years, before that in Bangkok for 3. The only thing going for Cambodia is the ease of getting a visa and being able to fly in and out with no hassles. My apartment, compared to what I had in On Nut, is terrible value. If it wasn't for the fact I can work here and live visa-hassles free I'd be back in Thailand tomorrow. If cheaply drinking and smoking oneself to an early grave is a priority though, then Cambodia is the way to go.

[Tony125]

From ghost city to boomtown, Phnom Penh soars high

By Suy SeDecember 20, 2015 12:42 AM

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From glitzy malls and high-rise flats to five-star hotels, a luxury building boom in Phnom Penh is transforming a capital once reduced to a ghost town into one of Asia's fastest growing cities.

Inside the recently opened Aeon Mall in the heart of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's first mega shopping centre, shoppers and curious residents flock to see the latest Levi's and Giordano handbags, snapping selfies in front of a giant Christmas tree.

It is a common scene across much of Southeast Asia but was previously unimaginable for many in Cambodia where around 20 percent of people still live on less than $1.25 per day.

But while poverty remains entrenched, a fast-growing middle class and elite are increasingly looking for local ways to spend their cash.

"I am glad we have such a modern mall in Phnom Penh. It shows the city is growing," says 20-year-old Bopha, a well-heeled university student who said her family made more than $1 million in a recent land sale.

Bopha said she used to have to travel to Thailand and Singapore for her shopping trips but that was now changing.

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Inside the recently opened Aeon Mall in the heart of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's first mega shopping …

"Their cities are crowded with high-rise towers. I think we are heading in the same direction to be like them," she beamed.

The $200 million Japanese-built mall is just one of dozens of new shopping complexes, condominium projects and hotels springing up in Phnom Penh as Cambodia rides a wave of high economic growth rates in recent years.

The capital is second only to Laos in East Asia for the fastest rate of urban spatial expansion, according to the World Bank, and its economy is expected to grow at 6.9 percent this year.

- Rise of the high-rise -

All across the city luxury high-rise condos are popping up with names like "The Peak" and "Diamond Island", complete with billboards promising aspirational taglines such as "Sophisticated Urban Living".

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A ferry sails past the five-star Sokha hotel in Phnom Penh (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

According to the government, Cambodia drew construction investment worth $1.75 billion in the first nine months of 2015, a 13.7 percent rise from a year earlier.

Many of the new entrants into the kingdom's building market are developers from Japan, China, South Korea and Singapore.

The 39-storey Vattanac Capital Tower, Cambodia's first skyscraper which was finished in 2014, is designed in the shape of a dragon and incorporates Chinese traditional feng shui principles.

A few kilometres (miles) away, the local Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation is drawing from the country's past, building Parisian-style apartments framed by a replica of the Arc de Triomphe on a riverside complex in downtown Phnom Penh.

But some are worried where the construction frenzy will leave a city once famed as the "Pearl of Asia".

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Phnom Penh has been coming back to life since the radical communist regime was toppled in 1979 but t …

In its French colonial heyday Phnom Penh was regarded as one of the loveliest cities in Southeast Asia thanks to its wide European-style avenues, carefully manicured gardens and picturesque stately homes.

Just a few decades later, the buzzing city was reduced to a ghost town when Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Rouge army seized control of the capital and ordered its two million people to evacuate.

The city has been coming back to life since the radical communist regime was toppled in 1979 but the surge of activity and change to its landscape has intensified in recent years.

- Poor pushed to city fringes -

Silas Everett of The Asia Foundation in Cambodia fears the city's original charm is fast disappearing with villas and stately buildings from the colonial era being torn down to make room for lucrative new construction projects.

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Experts worry that Phnom Penh's original charm is disappearing with villas and stately buildings …

"Phnom Penh's architectural heritage is world renowned... Yet the rate of destruction of these buildings of significant cultural heritage is alarming," said Everett, mourning in particular the loss of buildings designed by famed Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann.

And while wealthy Cambodians are lining up for a chance to live in some of the city's most coveted new addresses, the urban poor are increasingly relegated to the edges of the capital where many were evicted to make way for commercial developments.

Critics of strongman premier Hun Sen, who has ruled with an iron fist for the last 30 years, say he has turned Cambodia into a notoriously corrupt fiefdom where those loyal to him are handsomely enriched.

But he remains unapologetic about the capital's rapid transformation.

Phnom Penh, he said during a speech in November, would have been a "coconut plantation" had the Khmer Rouge remained.

Instead, he added, "an already dead city survived through the bare hands of our people".

Not everyone has benefited, however.

Strolling through Aeon Mall, Seng Seat, 60, says most of the products remain outside her budget.

"The price of some clothes and shoes at the retail brand shops is too expensive," Seat said.

"I just had a look at the price and left immediately.

[Gonsalviz]

Heck, I can live on $1,000 a month in Isan. I don't but I could. But I eat mostly local food. Mainly because western food is crap. When I want it, I prepare it myself.

I have decent medical care here although it is not next door.

I met a Kiwi that claimed to be able to save a bit on 25,000 Baht a month but I call that roughing it.

[DavePerkes]

As a long time Resident of Cambodia I would like to give a balanced view on this.

$1000 is not enough to live in Cambodia; Its possible to exist for a short time but to retire and have a good lifestyle you will much more than that and need expensive Health Insurance. Medical care beyond the normal day to day illnesses is not up to Western or even Thai standards so medivac will be needed in the event of serious health problems.
There is no Retirement Visa Scheme like Thailand or Malaysia yet. It might happen sometime; but I do not expect it to be a cheap option.
With no Taxation agreements between UK or other countries and Cambodia there are probably going to be taxation issues and the Gov't here are being more proactive about Tax for Foreigners and locals as well. Its not likely to be possible for Retirement income to be paid into a local account ; however its no problem to set up an account and transfer money here.

There is a lot of polarity of opinions here on the life here. I love it here still after 12 years, the friendship I have had and the kindness shown by Many Khmers, goes well beyond what I expected. But of course one needs to build and hold on to friendships in Cambodia like anywhere else.
Cambodia won’t suit everyone; as life is not as sophisticated as many other places in SE Asia. Things are changing fast. Infrastructure is improving and there are plenty of goods available (unlike 12 years ago when I was regularly going to Bangkok to buy stuff I could not get here).
There is not so much to do for anyone who has time on their hands. Cheap booze has created a expat drinking culture which can have serious consequences for health. I know quite a few ex expats who have gone to the grave early due to the effects of heavy drinking. I’ve also seen a few expats who have come to grief due to marriage of locals; but nowhere near as bad as in Thailand.

So for anyone thinking of coming here to live or retire visit first and don't take note of the Nay Sayers.