I was taking a walk this evening, around Battambang, Cambodia, when I passed a derelict building that looked like a Pepsi bottling plant. The logo gave it away.

Derelict Pepsi bottling plant, Battambang, Cambodia

An old man who was cutting the grass let me in and let me look around.

The plant was almost exactly as it was when it abruptly ceased operations in 1975. There are even bottles on the bottling line.

Empties waiting to be filled.

The caretaker said he was working there since 1959. I googled the Pepsi plant, most sources claim its a 1960s era plant, but either way, he’d been working there a long time. When the Khmer Rouge took over, the plant abruptly ceased operations and the former employees were sent to work in the fields. The caretaker survived the Khmer Rouge years. His family didn’t. After the Khmer Rouge years, he returned to the Pepsi plant, the only place he had to go to, and now lives in the back, where he tends a vegetable patch to feed himself. He takes care of the lawn and trims the hedges, and maintains a semblance of order around the place. I don’t think he gets paid to do so.

When he is gone, this place will be overgrown by trees and plants and crumble away.