The frustrating thing about photography, and about travel journals in general, is that no matter how evocative your captures, how skilful your editing and how eloquent and expressive your prose, you know that you can never, ever capture the experience of being there. There are many places in the world that lack ‘big ticket’ sights, that have no magnet for visitors: no Taj Mahal no Houses of Parliament, no Uluru. They’re the better for it, but a visitor needs to linger a while and absorb the flavour and texture of the place, and this is often beyond the scope of a two-week visit, and shooting 6×8 windows on these worlds is annoying and futile, like eating chocolate with the wrapper on. It’s not for nothing that browsing photographs of others’ travels is travel porn because it whets the appetite in a similar way without occasioning the gratification that is surely the point of…er…we were talking about travel, weren’t we?

One such place is Cambodia. With the very significant and notable exception of Ankor Wat, Cambodia has little to attract the flash tourist. Phnom Penh has a fearful reputation – although one which has to be taken in the context of Asian cities, which are generally far safer than US or European cities – which puts many casual tourists off visiting.

There really is nothing that can capture the atmosphere of Phnom Penh. The colours are washed and muted, the atmosphere a mix of dust and pepper and spice. The roads are potholed and rumpled as an unmade bed and every building of age is at differing stages of collapse.  There is a palpable menace in the air, but most of those offering menace are very accomplished criminals, policemen, politicians or often all three at the same time. They aren’t interested in you unless you bump into their children or scratch their cars. In fact, I did once do this while walking from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club to the bank. I had left everything I owned except the clothes I was wearing and the prepay card I used to withdraw cash back at the FCC. On the way back, I stumbled off the kerb and into a black SUV with no number plates. I’ll never now what it was, but there was a definite ear-curdling screech of shredding paint and I quickly composed myself and walked in a brisk but very controlled fashion the rest of the way down the Riverfront. You have to remember that this is a city which, 10 years ago, was out-of-bounds for those not carrying a firearm. 35 years ago, it was completely empty due to the Khmer Rouge evacuation. People don’t take many photos in PP, partly because it’s not a particularly photogenic city but mainly because they’re mostly too afraid of robberies to risk displaying their camera. There’s some logic to this: Phnom Penh’s crime rate us unusually high for a Southeast Asian city, but it’s still a lot lower than almost any North American city, and most European cities.

So, here is the second non-photo in the series: Australian Man In Cambodia National Football Team Away Shirt, The Magic Sponge Bar, Phnom Penh.

In Phnom Penh, there exists the greatest bar in the world. It’s right near the backpacker guesthouses at lakeside; or at least it was; the tourist industry is filling the lake with sand to form the foundations of luxury hotels now, as though to mark again the end of the era of democratised travel. It sells cheap wine and spliffs, whichever is your thing and it has a PS2 for its patrons to play.

I’d been wandering around Psar Thmei, Phnom Penh’s huge art deco market that day and I’d seen a Cambodian reserve football shirt for sale in a hugely fetching shade of day-glo green/yellow. I really wanted it, but hesitated over buying it as I was still too whacked out by the town’s insanity to properly take in what was happening. Later on in the bar when I saw the guy wearing it, I knew I’d made a mistake.