When I first visited Cambodia seven years ago things had calmed down from the wild years prior but cheap sex in Phnom Penh in the form of low end prostitution was still all over the place. It was nothing for a guy to score some ten dollar sex from a freelancer at the Walkabout or Martinis. The brothels were even cheaper.

Well now Walkabout and Martinis are gone and other freelancer haunts like Sorya Mall are looking like they should have been added to the demolition schedule. Most foreign guys now are going the many hostess bars in Phnom Penh. Even a lot of Land Rover driving local guys who have more money than they know what to do with get their entertainment from big KTVs where they spend more than the average plumber drops in an American titty bar on payday.

But the cheap sex scene was never totally killed off in Cambodia. How could it be? Behind all the building and development sits millions of people who make a hundred bucks a month. They still have cocks and they expect to get them wet.

So there are still a lot of places where sex is sold on the cheap in Phnom Penh. Most of it just happens to be off the beaten path taken by most barang. I am not going to pinpoint exact locations of any of the cheap sex places in Phnom Penh. I am simply letting you know that they are still out there.

Brothels and massage parlors

First there are the many 10,000 Riel cheap massage places that double as brothels. As I have written before not all of these places are actually selling sex. But enough of them are to take notice. When they do have women inside who have sex for money they usually start out asking 25 or 30 dollars for the pleasure but are commonly bargained down to something closer to fifteen.

There are also some other massage parlors around that are basically fronts for brothels even if they charge a little more than $2.50 for a body rub. There are some in the vicinity of the famous Tuol Sleng Museum where a massage goes for about $5 and the women working inside ask for a similar amount to do the deed.

Then there are the straight up brothels. There used be a bunch of these in Tuol Kouk and around Wat Phnom. That was a while ago. There are still some brothels around in those areas but they ain’t what they used to be. The other places around Phnom Penh that follow the same business plan ain’t much better. We’re talking about dirty shops with filthy mattresses and a hand full of chicks working with multiple guys each day. It’s not at the level of Sonagachi but it’s hardly like the Macau sex saunas either. The brothels service an almost entirely local group of guys but the errant grizzled expat still makes his way inside. The price of sex is usually around ten bucks.

Another set of brothels is at a little lower level. I don’t know if locals would consider them any different than the places I just mentioned, but I certainly due. These places are on the outskirts of the city on streets like 271 and 371. They have names like “3333 Massage” or “888 Massage”. A lot of times they’re built with shit like thatch and corrugated tin. Most of them seem like they’re run by Vietnamese people and the chicks inside are usually Vietnamese too.

The places are just as hot and dirty as the others with maybe a fan on the wall and a dirty bed. The blazing sunlight bleeds through the gaps and holes in the walls all through the day. These places open in the morning to service guys on the road. It’s real low quality stuff. Prices are around $10 American.

Street walkers and freelancers

After that you’ve got the street workers. Wat Phnom is the traditional place for them to hang out. They chill in the circle and in the streets around it like Street 94. They start showing up around 7 PM and some can be found late into the night. That is unless the cops decide to show up then things cool off for a while. Most of the guys that pull these chicks are local. Even though the Wat Phnom chicks have a reputation for stealing and having disease they still get customers. Maybe some of the guys fucking them have nothing to steal and diseases of their own looking for company. Who knows? The going rate is between ten and fifteen bucks though.

There are also some chicks working the riverside now. That used to go on then died down. Now it’s starting up again. Of course most of the chicks actually have dicks but hey apparently some people are into that.

I have also seen some women selling sex for what some would consider cheap rates on WeChat but that scene is a real mess. It’s filled with fakes and ladyboys sending pictures of Chinese women to fake guys into meeting up.

It’s no wonder that most barangs stick to the bars or at most the fishbowls and massage parlors. They don’t want the hassles involved with seeking out the cheap stuff that they might not even find satisfying. On the other hand for some guys scoring cheap sex is part of pleasure itself. For them there is no shortage of supply.