Cambodia - Phnom Penh

14th September 2015

This time it was a business trip! My first one, and hopefully not the last hahaha. It was super short - we only had 24 hours there.

We took Jetstar there, and despite booking only 3 days prior to the trip, the air tickets were only $220+. We stayed at the Toyoko Inn, a 2-month-old Japanese style hotel near the NagaWorld casino. The rooms were super cheap at US$49 for double room.

FYI, Cambodia uses 2 currencies: Riel (4000=1USD) and USD. If you spend in USD, they would return you the change in USD for anything above a dollar, and small changes in Riel.

We touched down at 2.40pm, met our driver (we booked a van) and headed to the Phnom Penh Hotel to meet our Korean guest. He also had 2 other friends who were meeting us at the Phnom Penh Tower. The airport is about 30 minutes away from town if there's no jam.

The Phnom Penh Hotel adopts a typical Cambodian architectural style. 

Since this was a business trip, I spent most of the time on the car or talking business, so there wasn't much time to explore the city, although I guess the city doesn't entail many attractions in the first place.

The streets were very clean in Phnom Penh, unlike what you would expect. 

I personally feel that Phnom Penh really resembles some of the small towns in China.

This is the Independence Monument, which I would consider as the landmark in this city.

We spent the afternoon and evening touring the city, visiting our business partner's office, and later the Sokha Hotel at the Chroy Changvar, in close proximity to our project site. I will not bore you with the details :P 

We went up to the top of the Sokha hotel, and this is the view of the Sisowath Quay from the helipad: 

Pardon the lousy iPhone camera quality at night time, but the view was not bad! The helipad was super windy as well. The Sisowath Quay is like Clarke Quay in Singapore. Basically lined with pubs and frequented by expats.

After a long day, we finally headed for dinner at about 8pm (which was already 9pm in Singapore!) We treated the guests to traditional Phnom Penh cuisine at Khmer Thai.

Interesting seats, but makes my back sore after 30 minutes. 

Cheap, but not that great. 

This was my favourite! Amok fish. 

The Amok fish is a bit spicy, with the texture in somewhat like a combination of otah and fish cake. Haha. I thought it was quite tasty, although I could only finish half of it cos I was so full from the beer.

We sent off the guests after dinner, and finally checked into our hotel. RS randomly decided to upgrade our room into double deluxe with an additional 10USD, so we had quite a big room with 2 double beds.

Lobby is nice!

We then headed to Le Moon pub along Sisowath Quay with another colleague. TBH, I just wanted to sleep, but no choice :(

It was an outdoor pub, with not-too-expensive drinks and good service. As RS NT and I all wanted to get red wine, RS ordered a bottle that cost US$44. I drank 3 glasses, and just stared into space while they chatted cos I was seriously too tired lol. Don't understand why they were so energetic?!

We finally left at about 12+am, swang by the NagaWorld for a few minutes, and got back to hotel at 1+am. It was my first time in a casino. It wasn't very big, and full of cigarette smell, so I kinda hated it. I tried looking at some of the games but couldn't understand at all haha! I guess I can only play the slot machines (US$0.01 for 1 spin!). I might try my luck the next time I am there.

RS went out again after getting back to hotel because her friend jio-ed her to go clubbing lol. She came back at 2+ after I finished bathing, and then someone called her till about 3am :O She's really super busy.

Had a hard time trying to sleep because our aircon wasn't working well and it was too hot. The pillow was a bit too high for me as well. I think I only slept for about 3 hours...

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15th September 2015

We woke up at 8am to wash up and go up to the 23rd floor for breakfast. The view from our room was quite pretty, and you can see the Royal Palace very clearly from the picture above. The golden-coloured building in the centre right is the NagaWorld.  

The opposite side looked like this though. Haha! That's the Diamond Island, which was reclaimed. The river closer to us is actually just a small water passage I think, which dries up sometimes; the further one is the Mekong River. For some reason, the waters there were always brown in colour. Not especially appealing.

At 9.30am, we checked out and headed to the Phnom Penh Tower once again to meet our Korean friend. He left at 12pm and we headed up to the café upstairs, called D22, for a last meal before we flew back to Singapore.

That's the Vattanac Capital Tower, resembling a dragon's back.

Such a crowded city. 

My favourite building is the one on the right. So colourful! (Not so obvious in my picture lol)

I had this beef bowl for lunch, which was only US$6. Tasted quite good! And it was so relaxing to sit up there.

Well, it was a really hectic trip because ES didn't want us to be gone for 3D2N lol. Hopefully the next time I'm there, I'll have more time to check out the Aeon Mall, Royal Palace, and museums.