Phnom Penh, May 2018

It was an early start this morning and by about 0745 we were in the tuktuk and on our way to Oudong, stopping only for a coffee at the waterfront so that Tanya didn’t get too grumpy. it was a fairly long ride (about an hour and a half) but interesting as we left the city behind and drove into the countryside.
Oudong was the site of the royal capital of Cambodia from the 17th to the 19th centuries but as the majority of buildings back then were wooden all that’s left now is a collection a temples and stupas across the tops of a couple of hills but still well worth a visit and the effort to climb the stairs to the top. Even though it was a hot day we fully explored the area accompanied by our driver who was able to tell us about the various temples and stupas. On the way back to the tuktuk we came across a group of monkeys being annoyed by some young tourists and saw one of the monkeys drinking water out of a bottle he had liberated from them. Then we visited the National Meditation Centre before stopping off for a bit of lunch.
On the way back we stopped off at a silversmiths village where they had some beautiful pieces of hand made silver and we could see some patterns being hammered out by hand. Was it good silver, well there were three monks there negotiating a price for some so I think it was and needless to say Tanya had to have a couple of bracelets!Read more