Cambodia

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Phnom Penh

10/12/10 - 16/12/10 and 24/12/10 - 27/12/10

We arrived to be greeted by our tuk tuk driver Sophorn (arranged by a friend of the family who previously worked in PP).
He charged us $12USD - which in retrospect was quite expensive for 7km but he is reliable, a lovely guy and was a recommendation - we were just keen to get into town at the end of the day.

Accomodation

We stayed at The Anise Hotel on  street 278. This was also a recommendation and at the top end of our budget with rooms from $42-55 USD per night. We had a room in the new annex which was clean and modern, had a kitchenette and free wifi with a good breakfast included (although rubbish cup of tea makers!!) For food there are lots of cheapies on 278 and 57 streets, Anise has a nice shady terrace for drinks and food too.

We found an excellent but not really a 'backpacker' bakery called 'Comme a la maison' on 57 which does fresh bagettes for 4-5 dollars. They were expensive for us but we got addicted to the 'fromage' one with Brie and apple in it!

Attractions

To most places in the city a tuk tuk would cost $2, but you could walk it in about 20minutes so the Anise is a good location. Things to see in the city include the Royal Palace/ silver pagoda, central and Russian markets, Wat (temple) Phnom and perhaps the city museum. Also recommended is taking a walk along the riverside, having a massage by the blind at 'seeing hands' and a Frizz traditional cambodian cookery class (street 240). You can go for a swim at the Cambodian Hotel or Raffles- you may or may not get charged a few dollars for this if you don't look conspicuous!!

Eating / Drinking / Other

For eating we would recommend the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC)- both the cafe for lunch and the rooftop verandah for dinner or drinks. Chow and pacheran were also good recommendations. Chow was also good for rooftop cocktails at happy hour. There are lots of places though, some better than others!! Again the ones mentioned above are not exactly cheap for Cambodian standards but we went for Duncan's birthday and really enjoyed them.

Raffles hotel near Wat Phnom does a fantastic happy 'hour' from 4-7pm. Cocktails are $3 each which is good value and you also get taro chips and dips which were surprisingly really good! You can get a yard of tiger beer on the happy hour as well!

Other tourist sites include the Killing fields and Toul Sleng genocide museum. We hired a tuk tuk for the day for $15 and did them both in a day. They are a bit out of the city.

For Christmas we stayed at the Raffles hotel for 3 nights courtesy of our parents Christmas presents!! We managed to have a Christmas buffet dinner with free flow champagne and Christmas carols! We had an great time even though we were kind of missing Christmas with family and friends. Raffles extravagance did make up for it!!

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Photos

Royal Palace
I had to buy this Tshirt to be allowed in!