A Breathe of Sunshine

Currently Listenin to: I'm Your Angel by Celine Dion

At last, after a lethargic PMS period, boring classes, mental emo-ness, physical laziness and mysterious headaches, I have finally installed the 'omph' to blog about my day 5 in Cambodia. :)

So on day 5, we were still in Phnom Penh and and the city tour continues. We visited the King's Palace, Watt Phnom, Russian Market and had a River Cruise. It was a splendid day as I never new the Kings's Palace was so huge with lotsa mini palaces in it. It was beautiful and filled with culture and err... Buddha statues...haha. Maklum la, Cambodia is a very religious country and Buddism is a man part of it. Many of the palaces were turned into temples. Many cambodians would often visit the King's Palace to pray (for free entry) while us tourists have to 'donate' USD 6 to enter. The pics coming up consist of the palace tour but unfortunately, photography is not allowed inside the palaces's internal domain (inside), hence only buildings. There are also no pictures on the shopping spree (yes, again shopping, almost hari2 there shopping) at the famous Russian Market because I had too many things in my hand (:P) then and it was really too hot in there (that I chose to hold my fan instead of the camera). So anyway.... let the pics begin and let the story continue.... :D

Day 5 in Cambodia: King's Palace, Watt Phnom, Russian Market and River Cruise

This tree here adorned the entrance of the palace. I find it to be really beautiful and interesting as it was uncommon and elegant looking. Note that it rarely has any leaves but the thin branches and pretty flowers. The flowers look really sweet upclose.
I just had to take a pic of this banana tree. Or should I say just 'banana'! Have you seen so many bananas (or so long) on one tree? I know I havent.
Map of the entire palace domain. It's pretty big. Or should I say very BIG. Click to view more.
From here onwards... there will be many pics of different palaces inside the whole palace compound. And I mean a lot! This is one of em...

Must kaki ayam when masuk...











Inside one of the palaces... because takde orang... I tried taking pics...hehehe. This, ladies and gentlemen is a giant golden foot print of Buddha.

Golden Buddha and if you look closely, it's adorned with diamonds.
There must be hundreds of thousands of buddha statues in the entire King's Palace and almost everywhere inside each palace is filled with buddha statues.
The walls of the internal compound... Cambodians just love to have history on their walls. :)
Then there's the exhibition rooms....Here, we have the significant (so to speak) white elephant of the king... oh, and with lotsa buddhas too.
The raja punya throne thingie when he tak nak jalan :P This is one of many, too lazy then to take all the chairs then.

There's an exibition room whereby lotsa golden elephants where put in display, the entire room glittered with gold!
Royal Seal... pretty nice to play with :P
Outside the palace... From the jalan besar...

Which by then, obviously, we dah habis our palace tour and moving on...

Did not take as many pics as I thought I would as it was really hot then and I really needed in my hand was my fold-able fan to make sure I didnt melt. :P

The interesting thing about Cambodia is that during their pilihan raya, they dont advertise like we do (TV, ads, banners etc). Instead... a few days before the election day, they'll have a really big and long convoy of the campaign like a big parade! FYI, during our stay in Cambodia, it was the election week.. :P So we had a chance to see how another country have their pilihan raya. These two pics show how it's all like. And mind you, we sat in the tuk tuk for 15 mins in the traffic waiting for the whole convoy to past. Imagine the length and amount of cars, people etc for it.

This is the Cambodian Parliment.
This is Watt Phnom. A monument / temple dedicated to the lady who founded Phnom Penh. There's only one picture as the camera was running out of space and again, the heat compelled me to stick to the fan instead of the camera.
We took a stroll after that alongside the river (in which we will take a cruise in the evening)...
Their makanan ringan or road side food junk.... Siput with salt :P

And after that, we headed to the Russian Market for more shopping!!! But no pics la (explained d why above). And then later we had a river cruise. What's so significant about this cruise is that this river leads and joins with three other rivers (it's something fascinating apparently to my dad) from different parts of the country as well as connecting to Vietnam. So we charttered a boat with 15USD for the entire cruise which was about 2 hours. We were hosted by a lovely family (the boat is their house!). It was a really sweet and comfy house/boat.

The banks of Phnom Penh and the other 'cruise' boats.
There.... is where Vietnam is.
Top of the boat... me parents enjoying the breeze.
The union of 2 (and behind is the third) rivers....
Sweet sweet daughters of the boat. My mum gave em little angpaus...haha.

*****

So that ends day 5 of Cambodia. Will be posting on day 6 soon and then HABIS! Hahaha.... hope you got a little exposure on Cambodia through my little bloggie. Have a nice weekend and God bless. Hugs!