THREE DECADES OF WAR had crushed and broken and emptied and traumatised Phnom Penh. Many people were still without the basics of 20th century life, such as electricity, running water, sanitation, housing, food and medicine.
There was however no end of surprises and viewing for me, a visitor and resident from 1993 to 1995. Slums stood next to mansions. Innovation went hand in hand with desperation. While the city was semi-functional, its residents soldiered on, hardened by and moving on from the past.
The Khmer Rouge forced the entire population of Phnom Penh to leave the city in 1975.
People returned to a ghost city in 1979, and spent the next decades struggling to rebuild.
In 1993, the foundations of abandoned houses were still a common site.
Everybody in this city was a victim of wars.
I spent my frequent days off roaming and photographing the rebirth of the capital.
Markets again bustled with traders.
Overcrowded classrooms and underpaid teachers were the hope of the next generation.
Religion returned to the centre of people's lives.
Desperate people hustled a living any way they could, like refilling cigarette lighters.
Farmers struggled on the ciy fringes.
Fisher families worked the river, living in shanty towns.
Slum settlements were all over town, with a large one around the city's northern lake.
In a country with no social security, cracks were wide and easy to fall through.
Stueng Meanchey garbage dump was home and work for scores of mostly young scavengers.
Children wade through filth to collect metals and plastics for a few cents.
Jostling as trucks unload, injuries were common, and the health conditions toxic.
Not far from the garbage dump, KR cadres executed thousand at Cheoung Ek, the killing fields.
Urban myth links the two places: wealthy Cambodians buried their jewelry and gold at the tip. None has ever been found. Of course.
Most of those executed there had passed through the notorious S-21 prison.
Ludicrous confessions were extracted under torture, often from condemned KR officials.
S-21 kept meticulous records of their twisted work, photographing the victims.
The scattered remnants of a civil society were all over the city, like this rail carriage.
Cambodia, moneyless country for almost 4 years, was a great series of patchworks.
Infrastructure was in ruins or bandaged up. 30% of electricty was stolen.
With almost no legal framework, selling dope at the Olympic Market was the least of the country's problems.
Several times a week, I'd go wandering with my cameras. The stark inequality was everywhere.
The lovely art-deco train station sits mostly idle, serving a train or two a day.
Behind it, an industry cuts up firweood of unknown origin.
A peddler hawks food from bamboo containers.
While somewhere in town, BBQ pork is on the menu.
Fat hogs arrive from the provinces.
Expertly tied, they are bundled into cyclos or carried in bicycle baskets.
Many a day I watched from my balcony as these men battled pigs.
Phnom Penh overflowed with surprises, like a man crafting rubber stamps.
Need your clothes died black? The die man does his rounds by bicycle.
In a slum, a mobile polio service.
An elder gent prepares his tools for his sideshow game.
A temple gets its decorative pieces crafted.
Safety standards at workplaces was just an unknown concept.
Throughout it all, the people shone brightly.
Even the darkest days of the 90s was better than the 70s.
While the future was not all roses, the worst was behind Phnom Penh.