Phnom Penh Walking Tour

Today we walked our feet off. We had a bit of a lay in and headed out around 9:30am to do a self-guided tour of the landmarks of Phnom Penh. We walked probably around 9km on total. And it was around 35° today. We sweated a lot and I got sunburnt. And we have to go back to some places tomorrow!

The first thing we saw was the independence monument, which wasn't particularly remarkable, followed by a statue to the late king Norodom Sihanouk, who died in 2012 aged 89. We wandered along past the Cambodia Vietnam friendship monument and along to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. We had trouble knowing which was which as there only seemed to be one complex on the street but they seemed two distinct building on the map. Additionally the National Museum was marked on the map as next to the Royal Palace and it didn't seem to be. We were however informed by the many many tuktuk drivers who asked if we wanted a ride that the Palace is shut until 2pm. And it was only around 11. So went and had a five minute sit down on the river front across the road, which was not that picturesque  (we saw a rat!) before continuing on to the market which was a fair walk from the Royal Palace area. On the way we stopped for a drink and sat there outside the shop for around 20 minutes trying not to melt.

The market was in an interesting building,  with a dome shaped roof in the centre and then four corridor type things coming off the middle. The stall in the centre mainly sold jewellery whilst the ones in the corridors sold clothes. Outside there were more stalls,  mainly selling glassware or kitchen items. Lauren bought herself a bracelet and I got a new pair of flip flops to replace both the flipflops I already had and the birkenstock type white sandal things that I've already had to superglue once.

After we left the market we tried to find the nearby Sorya shopping centre. We walked in circles round the area the shopping centre was marked on the map before eventually finding it. It was a bit of an anticlimax as it was beng renovated and it only had about shops and 5 restaurants. Nevertheless we bought a drink and sat on the bench to cool down.

By the time we left it was almost 2pm so we headed back towards the royal palace. On our way we stopped off at OunaLom pagoda, having a look at the inside and outside. It was quite a beautiful building. The temples/pagodas here seem to be a bit fancier than the ones in Vietnam.

We then headed to the palace. As we went in we saw signs saying no shorts or sleeveless shirts, which of course both Lauren and I were wearing. A couple stopped us and told us, having attempted to get in themselves, that you had to lay to buy a tshirt and pay to buy trousers, before paying to be allowed in. We don't actually know whether this was the palace or pagoda we were trying to get into, but either way we decided it wasn't worth it, and that we would come back tomorrow fully covered. We headed back to the hostel, slowly dying from exhaustion and heat, arriving back around half 3.

Around 5:30pm we went out for dinner and decided just to go to the first acceptable place we saw. Lauren had carbonara and I had pork satay and rice which was really nice. It was such a huge portion I couldn't eat it all.  As has been the norm throughout Vietnam, despite ordering together and sitting on the same table, the meals came separately. Lauren almost finished hers before mine arrived. It's a strange thing to happen when you're used to the English way of doing things. We went back to the hostel via a shop after dinner and just collapsed onto our beds.

The Royal Palace (potentially)

Mural inside the OunaLom Pagoda