Google Maps suggested an area a little outside Phnom Penh called PH Euro Park. It has pictures of various European monuments. There’s a bus route that takes me straight from my hostel to the area, so the decision is easy. Time for an excursion.

After standing and waving away tuk-tuk drivers as if they were flies, the bus arrives. I only wait 10 minutes. Phnom Penh’s buses come in two varieties. One is the old, worn-out bus, with hard plastic seats and a tired, loud engine. The other has good padding in both seats and suspension, no strange smells, and good A/C. This bus is the second variety.

We drive for 30 minutes, and I get a little tour of a part of the city I haven’t seen yet. Suddenly we turn off the main road and drive through a big gate, down a large avenue.

There are now high walls on each side of the road, closely trimmed green lawns, and a wide sidewalk. Every 100 meters there’s a gate in the wall, with a barrier and guards. Behind it are large, nice villas with European facades, driveways, front and back yards. It continues for a kilometer down the road, until the bus reaches my stop.

I stand at the bus stop and watch the bus drive off between the nice European buildings. One of the worn-out buses would have looked wrong in these surroundings. On the other side of the street I can see the start of a small artificial canal, with cafés and restaurants on each side. As I round the corner of the first building by the canal, I run into the Eiffel Tower.

I’m not sure whether I’ve arrived at a resort or an amusement park. The whole area from the initial gate at the main road down to the canal is spotless, new, and actively maintained. There are gardeners and cleaning staff at regular intervals, fussing over all the little details. The level is on par with the royal palace, but the buildings don’t match the jungle plants around them. It reminds me of my visit to Disney Land in Orlando. The same level of cleanliness, to the point where it feels artificial. As if no one actually lives here. All the gates and guards have made me wonder whether I should have paid for a ticket to be here.

There are very few people here. That’s not really unusual as such, since I’ve arrived around midday, when the sun is high in the sky. At this time of day, when the heat is most intense, people stay still in the shade and indoors. But it does mean that I get the experience of walking around a big artificial European town with almost no people. It’s a surreal experience. Like getting up at 5 in the morning in summer and walking through central Aarhus.

The area is huge, and I’ve only gotten a little way in. I’ve wandered into what’s called “Borey Peng Huoth,” which roughly translates to “Peng Huoth’s rich neighborhood.” It’s more than a neighborhood, though. It’s more like many rich neighborhoods, with dedicated parks, shopping malls, shopping streets, and monuments. A partly gated urban area for the rich and wealthy.

Euro Park 1, where I’m currently located, is one of several districts. They’re connected by big four-lane roads. Along the main roads, 3-story rowhouse blocks have been built. They’re Southeast Asian shophouses, where the buildings sit right up against the road with a big window front, so the house can be turned into a shop. Whole blocks stand newly built with a European facade that could belong to a rowhouse area in a suburb of London, but the facade fits oddly with the shophouse structure.

I walk a good 2 kilometers along the road. The four-lane road sees only quite little traffic. I can easily walk in the middle of the road without being anywhere near any of the passing cars. A yellow Lamborghini drives past in the same direction I’m walking. I pass Eco Park 2, 3, and 4, which are under construction, before arriving at Eco Park 1. On the map it looks like a small park with a handful of houses around it. The park contains a go-kart track with 10 zones, an artificial island surrounded by a small river, and a large gated area under construction, with signs about sports activities. All the way around the park there’s a bike lane with stalls and distance markers. I see the 1000 m marker without going all the way around.

By this point I’ve gone through 3-4 big gates to get through the whole area. There have been guards at all of them, but apparently I’m not who they’re guarding against. The houses are approaching mansions. Row mansions, since they sit side by side with only their 2-meter-high walls separating them. There are a lot of for-sale signs here. For between $1.5m and $4.5m you can land a front-row spot in this quiet rich neighborhood. Some of the smaller, more outlying houses cost only $200k – $350k, which isn’t that far off from buying an apartment in Aarhus.

Evening is approaching, and I walk back to the Eiffel Tower. The restaurants here approach Danish prices, so I settle for a bit of fast food. Life has come to the Euro park, with a good number of people walking around and eating at the restaurants. Earlier in the day I was quite skeptical about whether the area was actually in use, but here in the evening the activity level has reached a reasonable level for a weekday evening.

I don’t stay very long, since the last bus leaves relatively early. The bus routes are hard to figure out in this area, because it’s so new that Google Maps hasn’t updated where the buses run. The driver seems surprised to see me. The bus is empty. I have it to myself all the way to central Phnom Penh, where I live.

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