I suppose I don’t have to tell you that most palaces in ‘highly Buddhist’ countries like Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand require their visitors to be in proper dresses instead of those all-too bearing clothes that you’d probably wear while strutting your stuff on a white sandy beach in Phuket or something.
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So, the admission fee is USD6.25 (25,000 Riels) and that is like MYR18.50 in Ringgit Malaysia. How worthy it is depends a lot on how you can appreciate what is offered at the palace.
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For me, the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh would have been a big WOW if we didn’t fly into Cambodia straight from Bangkok. Bangkok had really spoiled it all.
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I mean, the Grand Palace in Bangkok had already set the bars so high for us that I couldn’t even fake any of those long WOWs that I’d usually let out whenever I come to a place for the first time.
Even the temples that I found scattered all over Bangkok flashed more grandeur than the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh at least in my not-so-good architectural points of view.
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Ya, I know. The T-shirt. I went all over Phnom Penh declaring to everybody that I am (still) virgin. Never ever try to pursue the truth or I’ll smack you in the head so hard you’ll never gonna see the daylight ever again. 😛
But of course, the best thing you can do in the times when you want yourself to be impressed so badly is to find something that looks uniquely different at least from the ones that you had previously been to (and amazed by).
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Sadly though, what I found was more and more of similarities. After all, Thailand and Cambodia used to be under the same empire so that pretty much explains why there are so many similarities in their palaces and modern-type temples.
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After cursing myself for not being impressed enough, I proceeded to the Silver Temple to see how well it was going to fare in my eyes. Oh well, the main building was beautiful alright. But then, just like churches, temples in Thailand and Cambodia would look pretty much the same when you see too many of them for quite some time.
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The Silver Pagoda (or rather Pagodas since they were a few of them) was beautiful although I had expected them to be much bigger in real.
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I am not gonna lie to you but The Royal Palace in Phnom Penh is something that you’d only (and HAVE to) visit because it is listed under Phnom Penh Attractions and not to be as impressed as you’d probably wanted to especially when you have already been to the likes of Grand Palace in Bangkok and all. You know – just to complete the ticking-offs.
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If there was something that you should expect to be immensely impressed with in Phnom Penh, it would be the National Museum of Cambodia. Located just a spit’s throw away from the Royal Palace itself, you shouldn’t leave Phnom Penh without visiting this magnificent and spectacular museum that offers so much wonders to every museum enthusiast like me.
The building itself had already made a big impression to me even when I first saw it and looked at it from a distance. I was, and still is, indecisive about calling it red, maroon or pink.
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It might not be the biggest museum that you’d probably ever see – In fact it is quite small for a national museum – but the collection of artifacts and ancient pieces of masterpieces within that small building stand proof that size does not really that matter when you know how to fully utilize it. 😉
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I had my every OMG moment as I traversed through the exhibition hall and saw for myself how Cambodia is so blessed with so many spectacular artifacts with amazingly intricate details and priceless values.
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It was good to finally see something of a museum in South East Asia that makes it stand at least on par with those hyped-up museums in Europe say – the London Museum in London and The Lourve in Paris.
They might be grand in the eye of museum enthusiasts all over the world but most of the artifacts that they are shamelessly displaying now had been raked in from other countries they had probably once colonized, say, Egypt.
Cambodia as a country known for its early civilization and ancient cities doesn’t have to steal from any other countries to come up with such a great museum like The National Museum of Cambodia.
Most of the artifacts on the display had been raked in from their very own yards so for that fact alone makes it such a place so much worthy to visit.
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Being so amazed with everything there was on the display, we were the last persons to exit of course, and we could have stayed longer hadn’t one of the janitors came shooing us away with a full blown whistle on his mouth. LOL.
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So, after one full day of wandering all over the city of Phnom Penh, it was finally time to cool down a bit and let our damn tired bodies regained energy so that we could at least walk back to the hostel. It really was a walking day for us and a bad day for one of the Tuk Tuks who could have had us on board. Heh.
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Of course, that was more like an appetizer for would follow next. Evenings in Phnom Penh really are relaxing. The environment is so laid back and it was just a perfect moment to absorb everything from the surrounding.
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Being there for the past few days made me realize why Phnom Penh is highly favored by two of my favorite TLC presenters, Mr Ian Wright and Samantha Brown. It really is easy to fall in love with the city.
What I saw next made me jump in excitement because I knew from the moment I first saw it that I was going to have a chunk of it – come rains or storms. I had to come really really close to it to know that it wasn’t what I thought it was when I first saw it.
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There was something so dynamic about it and it was less in fat and distinctively red which made it look quite different from what I thought it was in the beginning. My asking later confirmed that it was a cow (and not a hog as I had first thought).
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Another first-time thingy that I found in Cambodia. I’ve seen goats, pigs and even dogs barbecued in their wholesomeness like that but never a cow. A baby cow. 🙂
Well, our bumping into that big piece of meat had pretty much decided where to have dinner that evening. Facing the street where people seem to be passing by from wherever they might have been earlier makes the place such a perfect spot for another one of those ‘watching the world go by’ moments.
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Just on the other side of the road is an array of open-air barber shops (or rather stalls) and although I’ve seen some of them when I was in India, the ones that they’ve got here seem much neater and have more of those serious-business looks.
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It was the kind of atmosphere that you’d like to be spending your evening in when you’re in a foreign country like Cambodia. The whole place was buzzing with beer-charged conversations (since chit-chat would sound too mat salleh and un-local LOL) and people could be heard laughing and joking and talking out loud over the continuously played-on Cambodian songs from the LCD at the front.
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The restaurant seemed to be such a popular hang-out spot among the locals and it wasn’t long before each of the table was occupied.
The only problem was probably the toilet. I was hesitant about doing my business there knowing that there was a CCTV right there at the toilet pump. LOL!
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ORDERING FOOD in Cambodia (and probably any other foreign country) had proved to be a little bit difficult because we were not really sure how the foods were going to look like – or rather taste like – based on their unfamiliar names on the menu alone.
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After consulting the waiter (thanks God he speaks English and super super friendly, one of those with happy aura), we came up with these.
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They had pretty much confirmed my suspicion right from the day I arrived in Phnom Penh that Cambodia is NOTHING SHORT OF FOODIE HEAVEN! All of them were good that we were all ravaging like a trio of hungry vultures who have just found their much sought-after feed or something. Truly a bliss, really. 🙂
As for the barbecued meat, the fact that we ordered twice pretty much explains how good it had tasted in our boisterous mouths. In fact, if we ordered a little bit late, we would have even missed the crumbs.
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So – yeah, it really was such a perfect ending of our last day in Phnom Penh – a city that I had come to really really like a lot despite the very short stay that we had there.
Somehow I believe that Phnom Penh would have had so much more to offer if we spent a little bit longer there but then again – some things are better left unattended to so that we can always come back for them in the future.
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I remember updating my FB & Twitter that night with something like – Tomorrow, we’ll be heading to <gasping for air> Siem Reap, the Kingdom of Wonder!!!! Wohooooo!