The upside of Phnom Penh

Beware of the buckets - you wont be doing much the next day. Andrew and his girlfriend Jenny either side of me, Brent and Sonja travelling friends of Andrews met along the way, and Rach of course
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Apart from what went previously, I have really enjoyed Phnom Penh so far.  It is way more relaxed than Bangkok, we go everywhere in tuktuks or motos (motorbikes that you sit on the back of), the streets are wide and lined with trees with interesting French architecture.  We haven't been too harassed by tuk tuk drivers (the scourge of all backpackers) and I have my refusal, while smiling sadly and walking purposely away, down pat, which tends to get rid of most of them.

In an amazing coincidence a friend from work and his girlfriend have been in Phnom Penh the same time as us, so we have met up with them a couple of nights for dinner and drinks.  Drinks here can sometimes come in buckets, which leads to dancing in the street while people spray you with water.  At this time of the year anyway - soon is the Cambodian (and Thai) new year, which is celebrated by a water festival involving people throwing water at complete strangers.  Refreshing!

A great example of Buddhist karma!

How many people can you fit in a tiny tuk tuk?
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We have also done the required round of Palace and Temple (Wats) visiting.  The grand palace in PP is mainly out of bounds for visitors on the day we went at least, but you can enter what I think is the throne room.  Ornate, with European touches like chandeliers.  In the same grounds is the silver pagoda - an ornate Wat with solid silver flooring (mostly protected by mats), an emerald Buddha, and a solid gold Buddha encrusted with more than 2000 diamonds.  Taking photos is strictly forbidden in the pagoda, and as I turned to take a sneaky one through the door as I left my camera batteries died.  A great example of Buddhist karma!

An example of how French architecture and Cambodian go together in the grand palace
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We also visited the Wat Phnom, set on a pleasant hill that is overrun with monkeys and even has an elephant.

The rest of our time here has been spent relaxing, visiting some markets and a swimming pool when things got a bit hot.  Unfortunately we have spent an extra day than planned due to the Vietnam visas taking 2 days to obtain rather than the expected one, but PP is a nice enough city to hang around in luckily.