Bartering and Royalty - Phnom Penh Highlights

After breakfast this morning we all walked to the market. The market was an amazing experience and we each bought fruit and some of us bought balloon pants (Ed. Baggy pants worn by the locals). The market was very busy and so we had to watch our money belts as Cliff said people can easily steal them and cut them off. (Ed. The girls did well :-))

When we came back from the market, we had lunch which was very tasty; the majority of us had toasties! After lunch, we all took tuk-tuk's to The Royal Palace of Cambodia. The Palace was very beautiful on both the outside and the inside. We were all slightly disappointed that the King didn't come out and see us (Ed. He does actually live there and apparently he fly’s ‘The Royal Flag’ when he’s at home...Perfect if anyone wanted to pop him off and didn’t want to waste time hanging around lol ). Half way through the tour, we spotted some small monkeys. Most of us were excited at seeing Cambodian monkeys apart from Georgia(Ed. and me...smelly horrible things!) who backed away extremely quickly. (Ed. Hattie is right the palace is a truly beautiful place located in the middle of chaos and poverty. The buildings surrounding it are dirty, basic and in need of repair. During the Pol Pot years, the palace was ransacked and many of the royal treasures were stolen, however, what was on display inside the buildings was impressive, including a 40 kg Buddha.)

After a tour around the Palace, we all travelled back in tuk-tuk's to the 11 Happy Backpackers.



Arriving back at the hostel, we all went back up to our rooms and got ready for supper at the hostel (Ed. The food is very good here). After supper, we sat there talking and playing cards. We all ordered tank tops and then went to have showers and get ready to sleep.


(Ed. We’re just about to set off to our project area 70km from Siem Reap, The Makak Village. I’m not sure what the WiFi or internet access will be so we may be quiet for a while...I will try my best to get information out to you but please remember...’No news is good news :-))


Hattie Shaw