Dave Walker, Canadian co-author of Hello My Big Big Honey!: Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews, has gone missing in Cambodia. I know there are some fans of this very interesting book on the Board.
Walker went missing last Friday. He left his guesthouse in Siem Reap, the town near Angkor Wat, about 2pm so the maid could clean his room, and that was it, he’s not been seen since. Left carrying only a bottle of water. All of his stuff was left behind – luggage, passport, phone in the charger, everything.
I know the editor-in-chief at The Phnom Penh Post, and he’s been getting Walker’s photo circulated, but this is Cambodia, so I don’t expect a good end to this myself. Walker is a filmmaker in addition to being a journalist, and he was there making a documentary about Cambodia. I’ve heard it was something about the Khmer Rouge, so he may have stepped on some toes.
Afraid not. He just vanished into thin air. It’s been a week now, as it’s Friday again over here. I think by now it’s just a question of whether the body will ever be found.
Well, that depends. It’s certainly safer than it was 20 years ago but not as safe as Thailand or Vietnam, or even Laos. The vast majority of Cambodians are desperately poor, and war weapons still abound. The Khmer Rouge well and truly fucked that country and its people up, and there are still a lot of the old Khmer Rouge left too. But Siem Reap is generally safe. Westerners don’t tend to go missing from its streets. Quite a pleasant town actually, for Cambodia that is, having benefited from tourism revenue generated from Angkor Wat. I would normally feel perfectly safe on the streets of Siem Reap.
I’ve been in Cambodia on my own for weeks at a time in the cities and feel completely safe. I wouldn’t head to the Thai border or rural Northern communities on my own.
The cities can be safe, but you still have to be careful if you go off the beaten path. I know a journalist who was mugged by a pack in a remote section of Phnom Penh a few months ago. And it was his own damned fault for being so stupid. He was taking slum photos, flashing around a big, expensive-as-hell camera. The camera and everything else he had with him were taken, and he was lucky to get away with just the broken arm they gave him. I woulda thought he’d be more savvy than that.
This, however, was not the case with Dave Walker. Siem Reap is not Phnom Penh, and he was only carrying a bottle of water when he left his guesthouse.
A small update, although really all it says is there are no clues after eight days.
Foreign-tourists deaths in Cambodia actually rose 50% last year over 2012. However, that’s only 21 deaths last year after 14 in 2012. The Thai government would love to see numbers like that! The Cambodian government claims most of those 21 stemmed from “drug overdoses, heart attacks, traffic accidents, drownings and criminal activities.”
I didn’t know Dave Walker myself, but we have mutual friends and acquaintances. One of them I was out drinking with last night. He’s pretty shaken up by it. I did learn a couple of things though. Walker wasn’t working on a documentary exactly but rather a film based on a true story or incident. The thinking is that what with the UN trials now and such and Walker interviewing a lot of people, someone may have been getting worried that he might be the next to be arrested and hauled before a tribunal.
Also, the day he disappeared he was seen at his regular restaurant in his neighborhood, a place he ate at regularly every day, often twice a day. It’s not completely clear if he was seen there after he left his guesthouse for the maid to clean his room or if it was before, for lunch, but it sounds like it was probably right after he left.
Not much of an update, but there’s a website now for Dave Walker. Still missing, still no trace. He’s proving harder to find than that Malaysian plane!
“Cambodian law enforcement officials told the family it appeared Walker had died several weeks ago and that there were no initial signs of foul play.” Hmmm.