On to Phnom Penh

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After a good night’s sleep and a leisurely breakfast we took the shuttle bus back to the airport. The airport is only about 400 metres from the airport ‘as the crow flies’, but there isn’t really a path to walk from one to the other. By the time that the shuttle negotiates the roads between the airport and the hotel I am sure it must cover about 1½ kilometres!! We talked to an English couple on the shuttle bus who are just about doing our trip in reverse. They were off to Laos before Cambodia, where we were headed to Cambodia first and Laos second.


The most notable thing that occurred on our flight from Bangkok to Phnom Penh was that the guy across the aisle from Bernie managed to spray his little UHT milk container all over the place!! Fortunately for Bernie the steward was still serving from the aisle between Bernie and the guy across the aisle and he copped most of the milk!! You would not believe how far 15ml (?) of milk can go when some clumsy, fat fingered bloke plunges his finger into the top rather than peeling it back??? Or whatever it was he did??? In the end Bernie only copped a few drops of milk - it could have been worse!!!!

We were met at Phnom Penh airport by the driver that we had organised. He drove us to the Pavilion Hotel in about 30 minutes. He spent the second half of the journey touting for more business during our stay or, at the very least, the return journey to the airport. In the end we arranged for him to collect us for the return trip to the airport on Thursday!

The Pavilion Hotel is lovely. There is a huge, pretty featureless fence out the front, but once you are admitted through the gate you enter a lush oasis of palms and tropical plants surrounding a beautiful swimming pool. The hotel itself is in a converted French mansion so has quite a bit of character about it. Bernie tells me that our room is one of their cheaper rooms at just $50/night, but it is clean and well appointed and has everything we need.

After checking-in and settling into our room we went for a walk to familiarise ourselves with the local area. We are very near to the Royal Palace and the National Museum so we wandered past both of those down to the Tonle Sap River. We took a few photos down near the river and then walked back to the Pavilion. We ventured out to the Tamarind Restaurant for dinner which is only a couple of streets away and was recommended in one of the guidebooks or magazines that we have read. We both ate dishes from the North African page - as you do when you are in Cambodia??! Talk about multicultural?!

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Comments

[Roobs]

Lovely photo of the Royal Palace
hey, my friends and i were in phnom penh last week. your photograph of the royal palace does justice to its gorgeous architecture