Sep 23, 2014

Day 2: A more local Phnom Penh

Today was a chilled out day. We woke up quite early and went to breakfast at 9 am. After a laid back breakfast and great conversation we strolled back to our hotel and spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon there.  We left for lunch at around 2 pm after which we went to the royal palace, which turned out to be closed for the festival unfortunately and then to Aeon mall, which is in another part of the city, to meet a friend. 

Florence and I spent some time in Aeon mall where we discovered some interesting local food. We didn’t see many tourists here and observed the locals. We met Florence’s friend at the mall and went with her to dinner to a nearby island called diamond island. Its an artificial island with restaurants by the riverside, amusement parks, hotels and apartments. Although it sounded like Sentosa to me, I was surprised to discover that it was more of a local hangout than a tourist destination. 

I learnt a lot about Cambodia from Florence’s friend. She said that people start learning english quite early on and in private schools, kids communicate in english, as they do in India. Quite a few foreigners are in Cambodia these days running NGOs. There aren’t a lot of multi national brands which have set up in Cambodia yet. Aeon mall is one of the only four malls in the city. 

We ate some local food over dinner which was really yummy and followed it up with some frozen yogurt. Tomorrow, we depart for Siem Reap. 

No comments: