Phnom Penh Day 2

Today we got up early and headed to the main attraction of downtown Phnom Penh--the royal palace. This is where the king of Cambodia lives the majority of the time. It's a huge complex of beautiful, colorful buildings and monuments enclosed by a large surrounding gate. The building with living quarters were closed for touring because the royal family is there right now. The whole city is currently still in mourning for their king, who died about a month ago. At night, crowds crowd out on picnic blankets in front of a large portrait of the king hanging in front of the palace, one of many, many portraits of the king displayed around the city. They pray and light candles and incense and pile flowers in front of his picture. Our tour guide informed us that in traditional Cambodian culture, each day has a specific color associated with it. She was currently wearing white, though, which is the color of mourning, and she will continue to wear it every day for at least another month. Here is the royal palace gate, with a few monks taking a break from the heat.

The royal grounds also include the Silver Pagoda, a building with floor tiles made entirely of engraved silver. It was a bit aged and protected by rugs, but you could easily imagine what an incredible sight that would have been. The pagoda also displays a lot of the royal treasures, including gifts and several amazing buddhas including the emerald buddha on a tall pedestal, and a tall standing buddha adorned with over 2,000 diamonds. Very pretty, but no photos allowed.

I waited forever for someone to move out of the way of this shot, so I am posting it.

We also walked around the corner to head back to the National Museum to see the statues, scrolls, and histories. Many of the figures displayed were items looted from the beautiful wats we had toured the previous day that had been recovered, so it was fun to be able to place some of the statues and engravings with their proper wat just by recognizing the different styles. No pictures allowed, but I did sneak one.

Shiva!

After that we went over to the Friends restaurant, which is a teaching restaurant and part of a program to support work for former street children. So our conscience felt as good as our tummies, and the money directly supports the people of Cambodia. We took an afternoon rest in the afternoon to escape the heat, then felt the urge to go out and see the bustling Central Market and Russian Market. It was a seemingly endless maze of tiny shops exploding with hanging shirts and pants, jewelry, accessories, and around the outside were flower shops and fresh produce.

This is a shot from our tuktuk getting into the market area, to give you a sense of how congested it gets with a mix of scooters, tuktuks, bicyclists, pedestrians, and the occasional car. Messy!

Walking around the produce market outside, I snapped this quick shot of a fish stand. Large catfish (I think?), so freshly cut that the fins on their severed heads were still waving.