We spent the afternoon of June 16th in Phnom Penh–flew there from Luang Prabang via Vietienne, long layover, needed yet another visa, sigh.  Our guide, Mr. Narith, met us at the airport with our driver, Mr. Kia.  Mr. Narith took us to lunch at Friends, a restaurant run by street youth.  After a delicious meal, we toured the Royal Palace, an incredible complex, still the royal residence (the 61 year old king lives there with his mama). 

The wet season arrived (on top of us) while we were touring, but we still managed to take in the temple at the Royal Palace–where we saw the Emerald Buddha (actually a large jade buddha) and several solid gold buddha statues.  The royal family once kept elephants in a wing of the complex–lots of elephant paraphernalia located there now.

We then toured the National Museum, where we saw several Angkorean pieces of sculpture–beautiful, but particularly snooze-worthy after such a long day.  The girls and I were delighted to check into our Raffles hotel suite (gorgeous).  Turns out that Phnom Penh was hosting the 37th World Heritage Session, and many of the dignitaries were staying at our hotel–hence, the metal detector at the entrance.  We still managed to find a tuk-tuk to take us out to shop at the Friends store, a vintage clothing store, a few other fun places, to dinner, then back to the hotel to prepare for our last stop, Song Saa.