Day 13...or the day I was rescued by a tuk tuk driver

Inside the National Museum

After my looong trip from Siem Reap, I let myself sleep in some today.  I rolled out of bed around 8:30, but lounged around for awhile talking to Jeff cause well the 11 hour time difference isn't kind to relationships.

One of the guys I talked to at the airport said the Royal Palace closes for lunch, which I assumed meant around noon.  So I headed down to the palace to see cool things. Turns out, the Royal Cambodian Lunch (idk if that's a thing) is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.  So I now had three hours to kill and no idea how to spend it.  AND the tuk tuk drivers are quite bored since this is low tourist season so everyone is trying to give me rides different places. I JUST WANTED TO SEE THE PALACE!

The National Museum

I spotted a Costa Coffee (like Bigby coffee) and grabbed an iced coffee and got on the wifi. Turns out the national museum was right around the corner, which was totally great!  I finished my coffee and headed out the door.

Now, in my few days in Siem Reap, I didn't ever experience very good English so I wasn't expecting

Royal Palace from the park

much out of the translations in the museum, but they turned out to be very good!  A lot of the museum focuses on the time period immediately before and during the building of Ankgor Wat so it was really neat to have already been there.  One of my favorite parts of the exhibit were animations by students at Monash University in Australia that depicted various parts of life surrounding Ankgor Wat during its heydey.

After that, I decided to get lunch because it was still only about 12:30. I still had an hour and a half to
kill before the Palace was open again.  During lunch I was sitting next to what could very easily have been part of the Russian mob. I jokingly mentioned it to Jeff and he's like, "Oh yah, Cambodia's huge in the drug smuggling market."  Well, that turned out to be not so funny.  For dessert (I don't often indulge in dessert) I had mango ice cream. Holy crap. I can't even begin to describe how good anything fruit-related is here.

Inside the Royal Palace

Walking into the "palace" I notice it's still closed. A ton of tuk tuk drivers are telling me it's closed and not open until 3 p.m., which I knew wasn't true and I just assumed it was a scam so I sat down and waited until the ticket window opened.  Well, a really sweet tuk tuk driver came in and pointed out the palace and I was in the wrong place. I felt SO STUPID cause I had already been in the palace. He tried to convince me to not go because "the palace is closed in the afternoon for the king's nap." But I stuck to my guns and headed towards the palace...or so I thought.  I was going in totally the wrong direction and he drove up to me and said for $1 he'd take me.  I couldn't argue  because I was very turned around.

As close as I could get to the king.

Finally, at 2:30 I arrived at the Royal Palace, over four hours after I left my hostel.  I paid for an
English speaking tour guide cause...well sometimes it's just nice to hear stories.  The king still lives in the palace area, but we (obviously) don't get to visit the royal living quarters.  In Cambodia, like Thailand, the king is more a figurehead for the country and not so much a political leader. Still, the opulence that surrounds the grounds is astounding when considering Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world.

The Silver Pagdoa

Also in the palace area is the Silver Pagoda. This is a temple that has a floor made of silver. Literally, over 2000 tiles weighing over 1 kilo a piece of silver.  It houses an emerald Buddha, as well as the famous standing Buddha. The standing Buddha is 90 kilos of solid gold (almost 200 pounds), encrusted in over 2000 diamonds, including a 25 and 20 carat diamond. I wasn't joking when I said the place was opulent! Interestingly, only foreigners calls this the Silver Pagoda. Cambodians refer to it as the Emerald Buddha Pagoda.

By the time I was done at the Pagoda, I was dying from the heat. Cambodia is hot, plus Phnom Penh is a big city so it traps the heat and doesn't let go.  I came back to my hostel and took a shower and stood in front of the a/c for a good thirty minutes.  And then decided to wander through some shops.

Well, there were a couple nondescript silk stores that I didn't buy anything in. Buuuuut I found a wine

Wine tasting

tasting store!  They make wine from Palm tree sap.  I got to taste a few different flavors, including pineapple and ginger.  As well as taste a few of their traditional sauces and seasonings.  For a cooking, wine drinking girl like me this was pay dirt!  I ended up snagging a bottle of wine to celebrate my homecoming with my parents next week.

When I got back, I checked to see if my clothes were clean. Last night when I arrived, I asked the front desk how long the laundry would take. He said if I brought it right now, he would have it tomorrow afternoon. Well, he called the lady and told me it won't be ready until tomorrow. I've been wearing dirty clothes for a few days now, so it's not a big deal, but I had gotten in my head how nice clean clothes would feel so I'm a little disappointed. I'm also marginally concerned that if I don't get the clothesback tomorrow, I only have one skirt, one shirt, and very limited socks left for the next week...which would be interesting.  But, positive thinking like Mom J taught me, clothes will come tomorrow.

After that, I've just been hanging out in my hostel for a few hours, writing up three blog posts for you lovely people :)  I'm grabbing dinner with a girl from Chile who is in my hostel and going to bed. My tuk tuk driver is picking me up at 9 a.m. for the killing fields and genocide museum. Tomorrow will be a very sober day.