Cambodia Pool Party Horror I Had To buy My Way Out Of Jail

The high life has cost Paul his health and fortune.

- Fiona Fraser

It was the culture of Cambodia that first attracted Paul Brasch to the small Southeast Asian country.

“I loved the people and the lifestyle,” says the 32-year-old, who hails from Taupo. And after five years there, he’d built a wonderful life, running and then selling a small business, landing a well-paid job and even rubbing shoulders with Cambodia’s elite on occasion.

“I’ve been blessed by the Master Monk, who is the monk to the Prime Minister of Cambodia. I’ve dined with a four-star general and the Commissioner of Police. So I’ve seen the most fortunate in the country ... and the least.”

That’s no exaggeration. “The least” are the poor, the deprived and the criminal – men Paul spent a few weeks quartered with during his time locked up in a crumbling Cambodian prison after being arrested at a pool party in January.

After taking a voluntary redundancy from an events job at Skinny Mobile in New Zealand in 2013, Paul arrived in Cambodia and quickly found a job in a hostel bar. “I’d literally never poured a beer in my life,” he smiles. “But here I was working out of this bamboo shack, by a pool, serving drinks.”

Siem Reap is a party town and for Paul, it was a welcome change from corporate life. “That’s the joy of Cambodia – you can get up to a little bit of mischief. There are backpackers everywhere and something like 300 hostels within a 3km radius. Beers are 50 cents.”

It wasn’t long until Paul identified a gap in the party market. “I’d often take hostel guests out bar-hopping to the best spots – some nights, I’d have 50 with me. One of them told me ‘You should be making money off this!’”