An elephant trainer admires the spires of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh

Photo: Graham Simmons

It is difficult to imagine that this is the same city as the Phnom Penh of 1975, a metropolis of two million that on the sudden whim of the late despot Pol Pot was forcibly emptied, to become a ghost town that languished and rotted until the downfall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

With just a little exaggeration, the New York Times recently described Phnom Penh as “the new Prague”.

Phnom Penh’s Sisowath Quay is now emerging as one of the world’s great promenades, with new cafés, boardwalks and landscaping immediately inviting the visitor to linger and enjoy.

Just a minute’s walk off Sisowath Quay is the National Museum, with its superb sculpture collection, and one of the few cultural monuments to survive the Khmer Rouge era.

Fronting the Tonle Sap River is the sumptuous classical-style Royal Palace, home to King and Queen Sihanouk. From the Royal Gatehouse on the river to the Napoleon III villa to the gilded gazebos in the gardens, everything breathes panache and flair. But the spectacle never becomes ostentatious, and is never overdone – as in Classical Khmer times, the whole theme is in perfect balance.

Late in the evening, anybody who is anybody (together with most who aren’t) congregates at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia, right on Sisowath Quay overlooking the river. The FCCC is world-famous, both as a hangout for respected reporters and as a haven for hack journalists. Many of the latter make the club their home and never take the trouble to get out into the provinces to see the real progress that is being made in rebuilding Cambodia. This notwithstanding, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club is still a “must” place for all visitors to Phnom Penh.

The city's vibrant nightlife is also worth taking in – including  Metro and Heart of Darkness (with echoes of a Joseph Conrad novel) – or quaff a couple of drinks at Sharky’s Bar, an airy and thoroughly pleasant rooftop establishment (albeit some way from Sisoawath Quay).

Also well worth visiting are Phnom Penh’s markets. There are three markets worth checking out: the Central Market (Psar Thmei), the Russian Market (for crafts and cheap CDs) and the Tuol Tum Pong Market (mainly produce).