So long, Phnom Penh!

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[youtube=ijtgmgssGks]

Today we woke up at 9, early for us, and went out to see the National Museum and Royal Palace before 11 because the palace closes at 11 for lunch. We wanted to catch the bus around 12 or 1 so that we could be in Siem Reap in time for Ronald to work.

First we walked to the palace and paid the $6.25 to get in along with about a billion other people, both tourists and schoolchildren. It was a really big complex and it was pretty, but I think they all sort of look the same, so maybe I’m not the best person to ask. You couldn’t take pictures inside, so that was lame, and we didn’t have a guide, so who knows what’s so special about it. There’s a gold pagoda and a silver pagoda and tons of royal chairs for the king to be carted around on. There's a video below of some musicians playing there.

So after a walkthrough of the place we left and went to the museum, only about a block away. The weather has been pretty sunny and cloudy off and on, so it hasn’t been too hot to walk places. The museum ($3 entrance fee) was in a really pretty old red building and had a beautiful courtyard and a rather boring display of stone statues, most of which were Buddha. If you’re into that stuff, I guess it’d be great, but I think mostly it’s a lovely place to bring a book and sit in the courtyard or in the chairs at the refreshment section.

We had a little bit of time left before we needed to be back to check out so we headed to the Central Market which is in a very large and yellow, dome-shaped building. It’s quite pretty I think. There were tons of people selling bracelets, scarves, t-shirts, etc. Ronald and I both bought a $2 shirt and headed back via tuk tuk to the guesthouse, which cost us another $2.

I ran to the tour agency to buy bus tickets while Ronald packed up his stuff. I bought the second-to-worst bus at a whopping $5 for 12:45 but they would come pick us up at Okay at around 12. We checked out and were picked up at 12:20 and taken to the bus station located very near the central market. We left only about 15 minutes late, stopped for about 20 minutes at around 14:30, picked up more people at 15:00 and they sat in little plastic blue chairs in the aisle, an oh-so-comfortable ride I’m sure. Luckily for them some people and some of them got off in random places. The next event came when we hit a cow. We must have hit its back end because when we stopped to look at it, it apparently got up and started walking.

In the city the bus deceptively stopped on the side of the road and all of the gringos were wondering whether or not we should get off. I, however, have experience in this and so does Ronald, so we calmly waited for the commotion to subside and the bus to get moving. About two minutes later we were at the bus station and got off there.

At Okay the guy told us they had a sister guesthouse, Yellow Guesthouse, here in Siem Reap and that we could stay there for $7. So we wrote down my name because someone would come to the station and pick us up to take us there. No one showed, so Ronald went to call and the man assured us someone was on their way. 15 minutes later, we took a ride with another tuk tuk driver nearby. He took us to the guesthouse but we realized, with his help and map, that we were very far from the center. They do offer a free tuk tuk to downtown, but we thought it would be better if we just stayed closer.

So we go with Rany to one he suggests to find that it really wasn’t the one he suggested, that that one was full, and so he stopped at this one. Turns out they didn’t have hot water, so he took us to another place that was farther away and that’s where we ended up. We had to fight with them a bit for the price because they told us $8 and then said they only had $11 but finally conceded. The Mekong Boutique Hotel is where we are and it’s very close to the old market, so that’s just fine.

We had dinner at Viva! and it was a good little Mexican place.

Angkor Wat tomorrow at 9:30 with Rany!

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Photos

different colors for different days
sunday: red
monday: dark yellow (looks orange to me...)
tuesday:violet
wednesday: leaf bud color
thursday: green
friday: purple

rraaaaaarrr
so strong