Cambodia forum

GRAK88,
Pretty much ALL the massage places dotted around the public areas of Phnom Penh are legit. Range from $US4-10/hr. The Gov't really cracked down on the 'massage' palour scene and forced 99% of the non legit massage services into bars and places only those that do their research locate.
Having spent about 10 days over 2 trips to Phnom Penh, the obvious massage joints did what the box said, massage.

The blind one 'Seeing Hands Massage' is OK and morally fantastic if not a little more expensive. The massages are OK, like busylizzy said, 50/50.

"I just spent a month in PP and had near daily massages. Don't let the places full you, they might not advertise as much as before but extras are available at the vast majority of locations."

I would think that as long as you can get a quality massage, though, that exrtras being available would be irrelevent to everyone else here.

If you fancy a bit of luxury we offer a discount at Bodia Spa, which was awarded "Best Spa" in Cambodia. I think you may be being a bit too cautious about some places though, as the others have said, lots of 'dodgier' looking places can give you a good massage. Be careful if you ask for a traditional massage as some can be excruciatingly painful, even off the women!

sayadian,

That's interesting and informative...the bit about the 'moral crusade' crack down 18mth ago and now back to normal, that's when I was in PP, hence the post above. A couple of locals I was speaking to were of the opinion that it was in for good but I guess like most less wealthy countries energy for a particular cause runs out of puff.

I hope it hasn't gone all sleezy town as I really like the place (Country for that matter).

Thanks for the info.

Madmac
interesting discourse but the rumour goes that Mrs Hun Sen was out shopping with her friends when she passed one of these establishments.Shocked,she spent the next few days nagging her husband to do something about it.So the places were raided.It didn't mean there was any general cleaning up of moral standards, it just gave the police the power to take the girls to the police stations 'were they receved the attentions of our wonderful police force for the night' Basically just a working night with the exception they didn't get paid.

I'll second that as massage in Bangkok is around 150 baht. It's a really hard question to answer since Cambodia has got the morality of everything and everybody is for sale.You might find that sad but if you're a girl working for peanuts and you like the guy well...
Most massage places advertise around $3.A lot of what you might call 'dodgy' places actually do a proper massage but as I said the rest is up to you.The girls tend to put themselves across a bit so temptation is always in the air but hey that's life.