Culture Time

This morning we were up bright and early, well I was, Tanya decided that making the coffee had earned her as much of a lay in as she could manage. But we still made it out of the hotel before 0830 to meet our tuktuk driver, Goom (at least that’s how it may be spelled, sort of rhymes with room) and it was time to set off on today’s adventure. Today’s tour was very much a cultural affair consisting of visits to The Royal Palace, The Silver Pagoda (which is in the palace grounds), The National Museum and Wat Phnom with lots of photos of street scenes along the way.
The Royal Palace was by far the largest place we visited and contained some very impressive buildings and even had a model of Angkor Wat in it but for all that it wasn’t as impressive as the palace in Bangkok, no gold leaf or shiny reflective tiles anywhere. It did however score highly for the small number of tourists there that early, making it much easier to get around and see and meaning that we didn’t have to listen to the deafening shouts of Chinese tourists everywhere, although they were starting to arrive by the coach load as we were leaving so I guess we must have just timed it right.
The National Museum was next door and just a short drive away so was our next port of call. It is a large Khmer style wooden building painted mainly red with a bit of black, inside the displays were all very similar to those that we saw in the museum at Siem Reap. It was interesting to see a number of exhibits boxed up either ready to get out on display or go off to another museum somewhere.
Then it was back in the tuktuk and off to Wat Phnom, which is a smallish Temple (at least by Thai standards) on top of a small hill set in a small park area. All very nice, but didn’t take too long to explore.
By now Tanya was beginning to flag a little so we went for a drive along the water front to find a suitable place for her to refresh with a coffee, Sherwood Bear was not very impressed with this as the place looked a bit like a bar and he was expecting a beer - I think you can tell from the look on his face when he was sat next to a coffee and then a glass of water! Somehow as Tanya finished her coffee it suddenly became time for lunch, so we asked our driver to recommend somewhere good for Cambodian food, it didn’t have to be a tourist place just so long as the food was good. He recommended a place called Romdeng, which is part of a small group of restaurants that take under privileged youngsters and train them up to work in or run their own restaurants. Have to say the food was excellent, the service was really good and the staff were all very friendly and based on this place I’d be more than happy to visit some of the other venues. Best of all Sherwood Bear finally got his beer.
So full of food we returned to our hotel for a short rest before we venture back out again to track down a coffee and a bit of retail therapy before we go off to party at the Hard Rock Cafe this evening.Read more