When the young Ian Woodford arrived in Phnom Penh in the early nineties, it was a forbidding and wild city but it was one that he loved and eventually made his home. At the time, Snow, as he was known on account of his snowy mountain roots, was recovering UN vehicles from Khmer Rouge controlled territories. This perilous work was soon replaced by teaching assignments and finally the setting up of Phnom Penh’s legendary bar “Maxene’s”, that rapidly became an institution.