Visiting the Royal Palace

The photo above is a statue of buddha with the special "buddha tree" flower growing just over his head. So beautiful!

Sunday morning I got to visit the Royal Palace (and leave the dorm - yay!!). Savada, one of the roommates, took me over there after she met with her mother who was in town. We left around 8am and were there for about an hour. It is a really neat place in the city and definitely a lot calmer than the rest of town, even though I was expecting more greenery and fewer concrete tiles. It was an interesting place with lots of buildings - the home of the king, the meeting hall for important meetings, pagodas, small shrines, small exhibits....



We arrived just adhead of several Vietnamese and Thai tour groups, so it wasn't very crowded for us. It cost $6 to get in (only for foreigners - it is just 25 cents for Khmer) even though the guide book says it is only $3. Who knows what was going on there - it certianly made it a pretty pricey entrance ticket, but definitely a good thing to see. It is a place that almost all Cambodians visit and is a very important place in the country. Even though they elect a prime minister, the royal family still has a certain significance, much like in other places like England.


Here I am in the small meditation garden in the Royal Palace. This is the area where the king comes to meditate and definitely is the calmest, greenest place in the area.