Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is a vibrant and bustling city. We went there for a 3 night visit after our time in Siem Reap and were pleasantly surprised at how cosmopolitan it is all the while retaining the energy of a South-East Asian capital city.
How we got there
This a heading I don’t always include however we had such a good experience with the transfer company we used that I feel like they deserve a mention.
First I should note, we had actually planned to take a bus for our transfer from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, but as with most of our trips, we were time poor and didn’t want to lose an entire day of our week in Cambodia to a bus ride. So we did a bit of research and came across a local company called BookMeBus, a leading bus ticket booking site, and start up, in Cambodia. As the name says you can book buses, however we used them to book a private taxi. Following what was a painless booking process and confirmation, our driver turned up 15 mins early with a comfortable and clean car. Our driver didn’t really speak any English but that also wasn’t a problem as he used a translation app to communicate with us and he drove incredibly safely. The cost of the transfer was around 100AUD, possibly on the pricer side but with only one quick stop we made it our our accommodation in Phnom Penh in 5 hours and had the entire afternoon to start checking it out, so we bought quite a lot of time back. Worth it!
Where we stayed
We stayed at a small hotel in the historic district of Phnom Penh, Blue Lime. The hotel is down a quiet lane and is a bit of an oasis with its pool and gardens, all the while located close to key landmarks and great eating options. I think we paid around 80AUD per night with breakfast, again not super cheap but good value for its comfort and location. We would stay there again.
Where we ate and drank
One of the most surprising things about Phnom Penh was the food and bar scene. We knew there would be places to have a beer, and we thought we’d probably get some pretty good food there, but this city delivered well above our expectations. The bar scene in particular was a ton of fun and we unfortunately just didn’t have enough time to get through what could easily be a very long list of bars you MUST check out. Below are the ones we made it to, along with some of the places we ate at.
David’s Homemade Noodle Restaurant
The place to go for super fresh noodles and dumplings and watch as the noodles are made. So good.
Set in a beautiful colonial villa with a pool, this is the place to go for traditional Cambodian food done with elegance. The restaurant also acts as a training centre and employs former street youths and their teachers. At Romdeng we ate traditional curries, including Fish Amok and Mike tried the deep fried Tarantulas (or really just tarantula, singular).
Other restaurants we visited are: Friends Restaurant, Connecting Hands Training Cafe (good coffee) and Piccola Italia Da Luigi (for something different from Cambodian cuisine).
Your go to area for cool and hip bars is definitely the Bassac Lane/Street 308 area. I can’t remember all the bars we visited as we made our way through a number of them but key standouts were:
Hangar 44, Le Boutier, Red Bar, Harry’s Bar
Not too far away, down the end of Langka Lane is speakeasy bar, BattBong (look for the Coca-Cola machine at the end of the lane-way). We had great cocktails at this bar as well as food.
Also cool to have a drink at was VEHAA. This rooftop bar and restaurant offers amazing views of the city all while relaxing with a drink (or two).
What we did
We knew we had limited time in Phnom Penh and had to therefore pick the key landmarks and places we wanted to visit carefully as not to miss out on anything. That said, we felt that the 3 nights and 2.5 days we had in the city was pretty spot on. We could have probably done an extra day/night but at in the end didn’t feel like we had missed out on anything we were desperate to see.
Phnom Penh City Centre Landmarks
Our first afternoon in the city was spent strolling around, checking out our hotel surrounds, the historic district of the city. This covers the National Museum (although we did this the following day), the Royal Palace and Sisowath Quay Boardwalk.
The Sisowath Quay Boardwalk was a pretty chilled area to go for a walk (once you managed to cross the road and avoid the bikes). The Mekong River is not especially beautiful as rivers go but it was nice to go for a walk and would be a great place to run if you are a keen runner.
I’ll admit now that we didn’t end up going into the Royal Palace. We did walk around the outside of it and stopped out the front to get a few pics, but after our many temple visits in Siem Reap were just not feeling it on the day. It did look like a beautiful Palace and if we had the extra day we would have gone in.
The National Museum of Cambodia is definitely worth a visit and we spent a few hours there. When purchasing tickets (10USDpp) we also purchased a couple of audio guides (5USDpp) which was worth the extra money. There are so many sculptures, pottery, bronzes, etc from various ages and even though the museum does work in a chronological direction, it would be incredibly difficult to follow without the audio guide. The museum is set around a beautiful, peaceful courtyard garden which is a nice place to sit for a short break.
We also made a visit to the Central Market and if you are a keen shopper you could easily spend the good part of a day there. We wrapped it up in an hour or two but there was definitely a good variety of cheap knock off goods and clothes and an endless variety of clothing, accessories and more.
Killing Fields of Choeung Ek
The Killing Fields was a must on our list for Phnom Penh. In preparation for our Cambodia trip we had tried to brush up a little on our Cambodian history, but even so nothing can fully prepare you for the stories shared at the Killing Fields and the S21 prison (see next paragraph). I’m not going to go into the story of the fields on this blog as you can get a much better understanding via one of the many books or movies that covers the history of the Cambodia genocide. What I will say is that the site is a peaceful place today and well worth a visit. The admission fee, which was about 6USD, includes a really great audio tour and the tour overall is respectfully put together.
We hired a motorbike taxi for half a day to do both the Killing fields and S21 and paid around 20USD, good value considering the fields are about 45 mins out of the city.
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum/ S21 Prison
We visited the Killing Fields prior to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and just when you think the stories can’t get more horrifying comes this high school turned prison.
The cost of the museum entrance for a non-Cambodian citizen was 3USD plus another 3USD for an audio guide, the audio guide once more well worth the extra few dollars.
Again, I won’t go into the history of the site or the Khmer Rouge regime as there are much better, more reliable sources you can refer to than anything I would put together. I will say that the stories, photographic records and remaining evidence on the tour are horrific and the complex still feels haunted.
It is a somewhat depressing experience (and that’s on top of the Killing Fields) but in-spite of all of this, a visit is a must to truly understand the tragic history of Cambodia. We would definitely recommend visiting the prison and killing field sites together on the same day.
Cambodia Itinerary
It’s not often we travel to a place or country and leave feeling like overall we pretty much got the itinerary and timings right. Cambodia was the first in a long time where we left feeling like had seen most of what we wanted to. That said, there’s always more to see and we would definitely love to make a return visit to Cambodia in the future! There’s so much history, culture, delicious food and the Cambodian people are such lovely people .
Our itinerary:
Day 1 - We flew into Siem Reap via Bangkok from Sydney. We arrived in the evening, checked into our hotel before a late dinner and beers.
Day 2 - We could have scheduled Angkor Wat to start this day but instead we opted to check out the town of Siem Reap. We like to do this to get a feel for the place we are staying before jumping straight into ‘tourist’ type activities.
Day 3 & 4 - Explore Angkor Archaeological Park. We started with the Angkor Wat Temple and then Angkor Thom on the first day, moving around the Angkor ‘Small Circuit’. On the second morning (day 4) we began with sunrise at Angkor Wat Temple and then moved our explorations to the ‘Grand Circuit’.
Day 5 - This day we visited a couple more temples, Preah Koh and the Bakong Temples, on the way to visit the floating village Kompong Phluk.
Day 6 - Morning transfer from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. Afternoon exploring the Phnom Penh historic district.
Day 7 - Explore Phnom Penh City.
Day 8 - Half day visit to Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Free afternoon for further exploration.
Day 9 - Fly out of Phnom Penh airport.
What would we add if we had time:
Sihanoukville Beach and the southern coast - We were keen to explore the beach town and nearby islands and would do this in any future trip to Cambodia. We had a couple of days we could have added but felt we actually probably wanted more like 3-4 days.
Battambang - Cambodia’s second largest city and from our research has plenty to see and do if you have a couple of extra days. The local culture, countryside, temples and French architecture are all noteworthy.
A Cambodian food cooking class (next time for sure!).