AsiaLIFE

“Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away,” Robert Orben once famously said – advice that may be a little too true given Cambodia’s filth-stricken streets. Asia Life checks out the capital’s pharmacies to sort the wheat from the chaff.

To enable a fair comparison, an intrepid Asia Life reporter, donning T-shirt and jeans for an ordinary tourist disguise, compared prices of commonplace items, as well as feigning a mild case of the backpackers’ bane, giardia. With symptoms including stomach cramps, nausea and belches that taste like sulphur, it should conventionally be treated with metronidazole, tinidazole or nitazoxanide.

U-Care
14 Sihanouk Bvld.
With branches scattered across the city, U-Care is probably the most familiar pharmacy in Cambodia. Its English-speaking staff and wide range of products make it a favourite for many expats. Small tubes of Colgate toothpaste are a reasonable US$0.50 and an Oral B toothbrush is US$1.10. Polite and attentive, workers point out razors (Gillette Mach 3 US$6.30) and shaving foam (Gillette Foamy US$2.60). The choice of soaps is unrivalled and quite cheap, with Camay at US$0.50 and Dove at US$1.10. A very sympathetic white-coated pharmacist asks pertinent questions about the stomach complaint. She prescribes phloroglucinol (used “in the treatment of abnormal and painful contractions of the intestine”) for US$5.50 and the old favourite immodium for US$5.80. Despite half marks for their prescription, U-Care scores well on convenience and service, and has an excellent variety of products.

Naga Clinic
11 Street 254
Tucked away in a leafy side street, the diminutive Naga is easy to miss. Distinctly upmarket, Naga has little in the way of ordinary soaps, and only big tubes of toothpaste are on offer (US$2.16). Unsurprisingly, items are a little more expensive here, with Gillette shaving cream at US$2.93 and Mach 3 razors at US$7.43. Oral B toothbrushes are a bargain though, at just US$1.10 for a twin pack. Naga shines in medical advice. The only pharmacy to advise a visit to a qualified doctor, Naga prescribed “symptomatic treatment” consisting of Smecta sachets (US$1.50 for six sachets).

Pharmacie de la Gare
81Eo, Monivong Bvld.
The train station pharmacy as it has become known, has been dishing out medicine to lakeside’s stricken flotsam for many years. A veritable Aladdin’s cave of all things pharmaceutical, the bets are that, if this pharmacy doesn’t stock it, it’s not in Cambodia. Narrow isles and densely-stocked shelves can make it a little tough to find what you’re looking for, but prices are competitive. Mach 3 razors go for US$3.80, shaving foam for US$2.40 and toothbrushes for US$1. There are no small tubes of toothpaste, but a gorilla-sized Colgate retails for US$5. Lux soap is a mere US$0.30, and Dettol US$0.60. Seven pharmacists serve the constant stream of customers, keeping up a constant multi-lingual tumult. Ciproflaxin, a common anti-biotic, was prescribed at US$9 for a sheet of 10 tablets.

Pharmalink
14EO Street 432
Certainly the most observant, Pharmalink’s pharmacist rumbled the reporter, very dubiously asking about if he was “from our competitors.” Prices are very reasonable – a big tube of Colgate for US$2.60, shaving cream for US$2.90, Mach 3 razors for US$7.43 and Oral B toothbrush twin-packs for US$1.50. After reassuring staff that their would-be customer was nothing more than a jaded journo, the reticent pharmacist prescribed Omez, an antacid, anti-nausea medication Klenniel, and antibiotics. Perhaps fearful of unfavourable comparison, she declined to reveal the prices, though all medications were genuine and manufactured in developed nations.

Angkor Chey Pharmacie
34 Street 13 (Opposite Old Market)
Much more of a Khmer-style pharmacy, six money changing booths and a key-cutter do brisk business in front of the sprawling store, making parking a bit of a challenge. Prices here are rock bottom – small tubes of Colgate are US$0.50 and big ones only US$1.25, while Antibax soap fetches US$0.50 and Dove US$1. Gillette Mach 3 razors are the cheapest in town at US$5.50. Angkor Chey’s only weaknesses seem to be the trifling concerns of polite customer service and basic medical knowledge. “Yes?” barked Angkor Chey’s belligerent pharmacist, her back turned. Without asking any questions, she prescribed US$2 immodium and US$5 pepto bismol, not making eye contact a single time. A shrivelled crone muttered curses in Khmer and glared Medusa-like in the background. How long is the course of medicine? “Check the internet,” the pharmacist growled over her shoulder.

Depot de Pharmacie “A” Dara Piseth
Cnr. Sisowath Quay & Sihanouk Bvld.
Definitely no-frills, Depot de Pharmacie is little more than a single room with wooden shelves. ‘Auntie’ sells no soap, toothbrushes or any of the other items a westerner would expect to see from her plywood shuttered window. Just the drugs, as Keith Richards would say. Customers usually come with a specific medicine in mind, and versions from what could be called the Who’s Who of deadly drug producers are all on offer. No English is spoken. But this was the only pharmacy to make a correct prescription, albeit only after heavy Khmer-language persuasion. Tindazole is US$1 per packet and Ciproxin, an all-purpose anti-biotic, a ridiculously cheap 200 riel per tablet. Be warned though, Auntie says this is “my price, with a special discount for you.”

The lack of reliable medical diagnosis form the pharmacists consulted in the course of researching this article, drums home one essential point – if you are feeling ill then consult a qualified doctor before visiting the pharmacist.