Phnom Penh Royal Palace

The Royal Palace in Phnom Penh was not on our list of must-see places because no one comes from Cambodia gushing about it, but like the Everest that must be climbed "because it's there," we paid the fee and went in anyway, hoping to be surprised.

This was after having a nice but expensive breakfast at a restaurant halfway to the palace. We stayed at the restaurant a bit longer than expected, but it was perfectly timed after all because we found out we were just in time for the palace gates to open. We didn't have to wait outside like other early birds.

Scary flower that casts a sweet smell.

Phnom Penh

Going against "tradition", we took a tourist bus from Siem Reap to the capital, Phnom Penh. We couldn't find the local bus stand and the locals discouraged us from taking the ferry because the water level is too low to arrive via the Tonlé Sap. 

It was extremely hot in the morning, but it rained hard after lunch and the remaining four hours were cold and wet. The landscape was extremely flat and lovely lotus ponds trimmed the edges of rice fields. The houses on stilts reminded me of rural houses in the Philippines, and if I didn't know any better I could have sworn I was already home.

We had some ideas about where to stay, but early confusion led us to the new backpacker haunts a few streets away from the quay. We read on the guide that the old backpacker area near the big lake is a relaxing place with a nice view of the sunset to boot; but not one tuktuk guy suggested the lake so we wondered what had happened to it. More on this later.

Our room was oddly designed, it must have been an ordinary room before but the owner retrofitted a bathroom inside so they can rent it for a dollar or two more. The strangest thing about the guest house though, was this sign just on top of the stairs:

Angkor, the Final Encore

The Small Circuit Encore

The Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom temples are so photogenic that we couldn't stop snapping pictures. The ones below are just a fraction of the ruins we explored, climbed, ran over, jumped off from... some of these you might recognize from the Tomb Raider movie!