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Decided to go and have a look at some cultural stuff today. We took a trip to the National Museum, then onto the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda.
The National Museum was located in quite a striking building with walls of deep burnt red. You were not allowed to take pictures inside, but to be honest it wasn’t all that impressive. I mean don’t get me wrong, it was filled with some very beautiful and very old statues and historical artifacts, however nothing in there was really all that different to anything we had already seen dotted around various towns and temples.
We moved on to the Royal Palace and, the Brains of Britain that we all were, turned up wearing vests meaning we were not allowed to enter. Luckily they rent rather fetching white t-shirts at the front gate making you look like even more of an arsehole tourist than you already did! (see pic).
The Royal Palace as with any in the world is a very impressive piece of architecture. It is a shame that we spent so much time in Thailand where this kind of stuff is on every street corner as by that time
we had become somewhat de-sensitised to its beauty. We weren’t allowed to take pictures unless you paid an extra $3, but we managed to sneak a few anyway, I think they pretty much speak for themselves.
One rather strange point is that the King does not actually live in the Palace, in fact he does not even live in Cambodia, he lives in France. We were also told that apparently he is more fluent in French than in Cambodian! This however does not deter the Cambodian people from showing him the utmost respect, with various posters and portraits of him dotted around the city.
The next leg of the tour was to the Silver Pagoda. Now the Lonely Planet dubs this as one of the most amazing sights you will ever see, the floor is covered with thousands of silver tiles etc. etc. Now the building is impressive and there is some good stuff inside, however the tiles left a little bit to be desired. I mean the way it was talked up was as though the entire interior of this place would be gleaming polished silver. We walked in and most of the floor was covered in
rugs. What tiles we could see were matt and tarnished and in some places even held together with selotape! A bit of a let down, but hey it’s better to regret something you did than something you didn’t do.
After this I took some time out to see Wat Phnom. This is a temple in the middle of town built at the top of a knoll, which in fact is about the only hill in Phnom Penh. The temple itself is….well.…a temple. There’s not too much to report after the magnificence of Angkor Wat, however it is a landmark of the capital and it important to the people in various different ways. Whether it be to gain luck in their exams at school or ask for blessing at a job interview it is a popular spot for locals. To be honest, the best bit was the Elephant at the base of the hill. It is just roaming around free so you can walk right up to it and stroke it. You are supposed to have a ride around the base of the hill but me being a stingy git just got the photos and legged it before the keeper
could collar me!
Decided it was time for a change of scenery - and a beach - so tomorrow we’re catching a bus to the south coast to a place called Sihanoukville to soak up the rays for a few days.
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mum
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It's taking me ages to read through all these - it's great! I love the curly long bits they stick on the end corners of all the roofs. It's all so completely different to our architecture. lots of love (-got to go, I've got another blog to read!!!)xxxxxxxxx