Monday, 6th September 2010
All of a sudden, I just realised that I have quite alot of things which I haven't blogged about but there's so little time to do it! Gahhh!! Anyways.. Cambodia, here we come!
Woke up before the light of day (at about 3AM) to be exact so that we could do some last minute packing and get a drink before we head off to the airport. Our flight was at 7AM in the morning! :S Bf's parents were nice enough to wake up in the middle of the night to drop us off at KL Sentral so that we could take the bus.
Then, the usual, go to airport, checked in, walked around, boarded ya-dah ya-dah ya-dah.. and finally, we arrived Phnom Penh at 8AM (local time). They are 1 hour behind us btw. We didn't have any check in luggage and the flight was quite empty so getting out of the airport was no problem at all. Before we left, I had also arranged for a taxi to come and pick us up for USD10 one way. If you ever need the contact of the taxi company, drop me a message and I'll gladly pass it to you.
Anyways. ride to our hotel took about 30 minutes. We stayed in a boutique hotel called the Pavilion. First thing that caught my eye while we were driving was this:
Okay... wait - I lie. The first thing that caught my eye was the fact that the it was a left hand drive country! I didn't know that! I thought all South East Asia countries drove on the same road! Anyways, then yes - the above picture was the next thing I noticed. 3 freakin' people on 1 motorbike. And those are 3 full grown people as well. I saw some which had 4 people but they had kids with them. WTF! How dangerous would that be. Anyway, for the not so clean minded people, I'm sure the above photo will also project a different image to you. :P
So we reached the hotel it about 9ish? Our room wasn't ready yet which was expected so we left our stuff and headed out to get us some food and also do some walking. A couple of photos of our hotel below:
All of a sudden, I just realised that I have quite alot of things which I haven't blogged about but there's so little time to do it! Gahhh!! Anyways.. Cambodia, here we come!
Woke up before the light of day (at about 3AM) to be exact so that we could do some last minute packing and get a drink before we head off to the airport. Our flight was at 7AM in the morning! :S Bf's parents were nice enough to wake up in the middle of the night to drop us off at KL Sentral so that we could take the bus.
Then, the usual, go to airport, checked in, walked around, boarded ya-dah ya-dah ya-dah.. and finally, we arrived Phnom Penh at 8AM (local time). They are 1 hour behind us btw. We didn't have any check in luggage and the flight was quite empty so getting out of the airport was no problem at all. Before we left, I had also arranged for a taxi to come and pick us up for USD10 one way. If you ever need the contact of the taxi company, drop me a message and I'll gladly pass it to you.
Anyways. ride to our hotel took about 30 minutes. We stayed in a boutique hotel called the Pavilion. First thing that caught my eye while we were driving was this:
Okay... wait - I lie. The first thing that caught my eye was the fact that the it was a left hand drive country! I didn't know that! I thought all South East Asia countries drove on the same road! Anyways, then yes - the above picture was the next thing I noticed. 3 freakin' people on 1 motorbike. And those are 3 full grown people as well. I saw some which had 4 people but they had kids with them. WTF! How dangerous would that be. Anyway, for the not so clean minded people, I'm sure the above photo will also project a different image to you. :P
So we reached the hotel it about 9ish? Our room wasn't ready yet which was expected so we left our stuff and headed out to get us some food and also do some walking. A couple of photos of our hotel below:
Our pool. There are trees/plants all around with day beds surrounding the place so that the guests can go and chill out. On the right of me is also a little bar area for guest to get food
Picture of one of the many day beds around the pool.
Anyway, we got some directions from the reception on the nearest place to get food and then we headed out. It was only about 5 minute walk to a street with a quite a few restaurants/cafe. Some of them were not open yet because it was too early so we decided to try the shop. Yes - it was called "The Shop". Don't believe me?
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The place was looked quite decent with nice decor. There was a fridge as you walk in filled with desserts and also a little counter top with all the fresh bread. They also had a little garden at the back where they placed a few tables and chairs. We were starving by the time we got there so I straight away went to order.
Yum yum bread!
We ordered what I thought sounded like eggs benedict from the description beut I guess it wasn't :P
We also had the chicken foccacia.
It was only after did we realised that this place was also featured in the the Lonely Planet. After that, our original plan was to go and visit the royal palace because it was just outside our hotel but since we touched down, we've heard various versions of what you can and cannot wear there so we decided to give that a skip and try to find out more before going there and getting rejected. So we went to the National Museum instead.
It cost USD3 per person to get in and once you get in. No photography was allowed once you got in. The museum was alright. Full of scultures of the buddha and when and where they managed to excavate them. They also had parts of the Angkor Wat temples. The carvings on them were really pretty though. Haha! Was telling my bf that's probably because they didn't have anything else better to do during those days and spent most of their life just carving a piece of rock.. :P
Next we headed to the Central Market. Nothing much there to be frank unless u're looking to shop. It's pretty much like a small version of Jatujak in Bangkok and considering we already spent out life savings in Bangkok, we didn't want to shop nemore. The only thing worth pointing out from this place is that there's 1 section that sits under a dome like figure building. Didn't manage to take a picture from afar but this is kinda what it looks like inside.
After we finished walking, we walked back to our hotel which was about 5 minutes away. The room was still not ready so we decided to just sit around and wait cause we were kinda tired from the morning flight also also the heat. Oh wait! But check what signage we saw right outside the entrance to our hotel:
We decided to try this restaurant called the Metro Cafe. This was by far the best dinner/meal we had while we were there. So therefore this place is highly recommended! We ordered:
The entrance to the museum
Photo of the whole museum from the front.
It cost USD3 per person to get in and once you get in. No photography was allowed once you got in. The museum was alright. Full of scultures of the buddha and when and where they managed to excavate them. They also had parts of the Angkor Wat temples. The carvings on them were really pretty though. Haha! Was telling my bf that's probably because they didn't have anything else better to do during those days and spent most of their life just carving a piece of rock.. :P
There was a little garden right in the middle of the museum - here they allowed photos.
Look alike? :P
Next we headed to the Central Market. Nothing much there to be frank unless u're looking to shop. It's pretty much like a small version of Jatujak in Bangkok and considering we already spent out life savings in Bangkok, we didn't want to shop nemore. The only thing worth pointing out from this place is that there's 1 section that sits under a dome like figure building. Didn't manage to take a picture from afar but this is kinda what it looks like inside.
Quite pretty. My photo doesn't really do justice.
Seeing as we didn't want to shop. We didn't stay there for long. Next up, we headed to the Victory Monument on a Tuk Tuk. According to the Lonely planet, we could go down to take some photos etc. but as we were closing the place, we saw that it was all barricaded. So before our Tuk Tuk fella dropped us off, we quickly told him to take us around the monument (because it sat on a roundabout) and paid him and extra dollar to take us to a temple - Wat Botum - which is quite near our hotel.
One of the few photos we managed to take from the tuk tuk.
Photo of me in Wat Botum
One of the many buildings in there
I called these guys the "flying men". For some reason, they seem to be quite popular on most of the buildings.
After we finished walking, we walked back to our hotel which was about 5 minutes away. The room was still not ready so we decided to just sit around and wait cause we were kinda tired from the morning flight also also the heat. Oh wait! But check what signage we saw right outside the entrance to our hotel:
Haha!
Photo of part of room. Bed was nicely made when we got there with flowers on the headboard. =) Air Cond was also turned on so felt REALLY good once we stepped in.
TV and small desk in front of the bed.
I kinda ko-ed after taking a shower and pretty much slept for about 3 hours! Haha! I know.. what was I thinking rite? All the way there to sleep? Haha! It's to catch up on all my sleep ma! Plus it's a holiday.. hehee.. I am entitled to sleep rite?! :P Woke up at just in time for dinner so bf and me decided to check out restaurants near the riverside. We decided to walk this time and it took is about 15 minutes to get there.
The steak, prawns and scallops with vege. The steak was perfectly done the way we asked for and the brown sauce that came with it? omg... it was to die for!
Lamb Kebab. This was kinda small and kinda felt rotted for how much we had to pay for it (can't remember now though) but I guess it was meant to be a starter. It was still pretty good though.
Black Pepper prawns. Think this might have been my fav out of the 3. Black pepper taste was strong with various other seasoning as well. They had some salad at the bottom which I finished cause the dressing was soooo yummy!
We both also ordered an alcoholic drink each after which my head felt a little light headed after. Haha! After dinner, we walked around a little bit more. Got chocolate gelato which tasted kinda funny - had a tinge of mint as an after taste if you ask me and then headed back to the hotel for an early night. I actually fell asleep about 30 mins once we reached the hotel. And to think that I would have trouble sleeping that night. :P
