Our first impression of Phnom Penh was that is was a lot more modern than we expected. The airport seemed new and getting through immigration was not much of a hassle except for the fact that we didn’t print out our visas which annoyed the officer. He let us through though and just gave us an irritated scowl. We got the visa weeks ago online for something like $30 a piece. It was a much easier process than last time when we had to send our entire passport into the nearest embassy (we wanted to try to visit in 2015 in conjunction with our Vietnam trip but ended up not going.)
We were met with a ton of taxi touts outside the airport trying to get our business but we beelined to the information office to ask which ones were legit. The woman behind the counter arranged one for us for about $15. Getting a grab would have been half the price, but we didn’t want to hassle with trying to figure out where they picked up and we just wanted to get settled.
We stayed at the Plantation Urban Resort and Spa right near the Royal Palace which was really nice and about $80 a night.
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| Atrium at the Plantation Urban Resort |
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| This was on the main entrance to our hotel. |
Most anything else in the hotel was overpriced by cambodian standards (restuarant, spa sevices etc,) but they had an awesome free breakfast and a nice pool.
For whatever reason, everyone takes U.S. Dollars as well as Cambodian Riel. $1=4000 riel. You could give them American money and they would give you riel or a combo of riel and dollars for change so there was no reason to go to the money excange. We knew this in advance so we made sure we had smaller bills that were in good shape before we even left the States (word on the street is that some people won’t take dirty or ripped money.)
We learned real fast that the way to get around is by tuk tuk, but they best way is by using the Grab app which is much like Uber. Using Grab, we could pretty much go anywhere for about $1.50 or less. You could get a car via Grab as well but it costs more, and there’s just something about putting your life in the hands of a local Cambodian guy driving a modified scooter that makes you feel like you’re livin’!
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| Cambodian’s version of Home Depot? |
One thing we noticed while cruising around the city is that there were a huge number of Toyotas. Mostly Prius’s, Land Cruisers, and Lexus lx470s (which are fancy land cruisers.) They definitely have dominated the Phnom Penh market! Strangely, there seemed to be more lexus lx 470s than anything, and specifically ones from 2000. We only know this because this is the exact car Margarite drives. Usually it’s quite rare to see one in the wild, but in Cambodia you could look in any direction at any time and see more than one. It was really weird. Any other car we saw seemed to be luxury cars like Land Rovers. So there was a weird divide in the kinds of cars there. It was either a tuktuk or some kind of motorbike, and then everything else was either a Prius or a super high end car. We even saw what appeared to be a lamborghini dealership!
The food was good, but not as good as the food in Thailand. Their national dish is a fish dish called Amok which was tasty. One thing you could get about anywhere were smoothies. Coconut, mango, passionfruit, banana, you name it! We even saw avocado smoothies which we didn’t try.
We ate at a couple restaurants and it was super cheap. I think the first time it cost less than $12 for the two of us and there was more food than we could eat. We got some stir fry noodles from a cart for $1.25, and it was delicious!
Just like in Thailand and Morrocco, many locals see dollar signs popping over your head and are always trying to get you to take their tultuk or their tour or buy their simcard.
A good phrase to know is “T’lai Na” which means “so expensive!” As you walk away, the price will suddenly become much cheaper.
We hit the Russian Market to look around which was definitely an experience! If you get clausterphobic or can’t stand strong smells, best to leave this one off your list, but we thought it was super interesting. Like a chaotic indoor swapmeet/food market/craft fair.
They crazy part was the wet market area where there were old ladies butchering meats and fish on the floor. I’m not sure I would ever want to eat anything from there, but it certainly was interesting!
