Gracy Bee

Cambodia 09 Mar 08

Posted on March 24th, 2008 by GracyBee.
Categories: Places, Travel.

3rd day: It is my birthday! HOT! HOT!

Baby was so sweet. He has insisted on buying a simple cake for me and wanted to celebrate with my on 12 midnight on the 9th. I was like: ‘no need la……..wanna zzz during this time and still can celebrate later after we wake up right?’

As much as I wanted to stay up to 12am, I was way too tired, that I zzzz before the time. Only to be nudged by baby to wake up to wish me Happy Birthday.

Only then I realised why he is so insistent of wishing me at 12am. He has a gift ready all this time and wanted to give me at 12am! I have already told him not to buy any gift and yet..this is a pleasant surprise from him.

My precious gift

Time to ZZZ!!

^^^^^^

It is a Sunday and our hotel had the weekend Breakfast special. A more filling one and worth the price of US$3.. Being an Irish hotel, they included their famous Black pudding, though it is not very well done.

 

Weekend breakfast

We decided to visit the Central Market 1st and then the Royal Palace. Wanting to save on transport costs, we decided to walk there ( around 20 min walk). Our guide book has said the things sold in Central Market are more expensive but we decided to go and take a look and see what it has to offer.

The Central Market aka Psar Thmei

Indeed, it is more expensive there. The prices are comparable to Spore, if not more expensive!! FYI, all transactions are dealt mostly with US$. And things are indeed not cheap over here.

Part of the Psar

The local delicacies

Seriously, I din expect to see this here!! Last seen: 22 years ago. Who: My grandma using this to brew soup

^^^^^^

We kinda lost interest in seeing the things inside. It was a very crampy and warm place. We decided to hope over to the shopping centre nearby - Sorya Shopping Centre.

The range of shops are slightly different from ours in Spore, and we were quite surprised to find Swensen in there. We decided to have ice -cream!! Greedy!

The Swensen there is purely an ice cream store and nothing else. No western meal as found in Spore’s Swensen. We called for the B’day ice cream to celebrate.

My B’day ice cream - Yum! Yum!

 

After the ice cream session, we saw another tempting scene.

 

These are also ice cream, displayed just outside the supermarket! Yum!!!! and really nice presentation!

 

^^^^^^

We headed back to our hotel, where on the way we settled down in a restaurant for lunch.

^^^^^^

While waiting for our food, there happened to be a birthday celebration going on opposite us. That is not what caught my attention, but rather a group of beggers going into the function.

Somehow, the guests vacant the tables at different intervals and the beggers just go to that empty table and get whatever they can get hold of: left over food and drinks, straw etc. It was the children who went up to ‘collect’ and take it back to their mother who were waiting for them.

Somehow I pitied them, but sometimes I do not.

Whatever they had got…

Anyway, after lunch, we headed back to hotel to rest before we proceed to the Royal Palace.

^^^^^^

At mid afternoon, we headed to the Royal Palace. According to the guide book(the latest edition), the entrance fee is US$3 per person. However we got a rude shock when we found out the price to be US$6.25 instead. WOAH?! The attendant there say it has changed.

We felt quite disappointed and cheated. The big increase of 50% is a bit too much. We decided not to go because it is not really worth the price.

We then settle for the Wat Phnom instead. This is the temple built on a hill. Now U turn back…………

This is the temple where locals went to pray for their wishes. Once the wishes come true, they must come back to give thanks.

 As the religion here is mostly buddhism, the temples there practise similarly as in Msia and Spore.

One of the statues

 What caught my attention is this.

 This is the statue that guard the entrance of all temples that we see (and later in Siem Reap as well), that I’m surprised to see this familiar sight.

The Lone Ranger

But amuse me is this. Our chinese counterpart always sit now, with either a ball or a baby kids,  but our Cambodian one don’t seem to be the same leh.

Juz can’t resist taking this photo 

OMG! They are half squating, half sitting! They must have powerful power strength!! Check out their butt too

We stayed there for a while then we headed back to the hotel. Decided to have dinner in the hotel instead. Starting not to feel well now. Felt tummy quite upset.

End of day

Another hot day. Already drink nearly 9 bottles of water for our 3rd day. Never seem to rain huh!

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