Seeing the sights around town

After a day of going non stop at the temples, we were kind of happy to take it easy with a day of strolling around town. Our hotel arranged for a Tuk-Tuk driver (Mr. Khun) who picked us up and took us around town. We wanted to go to the National Museum. It had just opened, and it was a great way to help us understand what we saw the day before.

The bad part was that they take your camera when you arrive, so we were not able to take any pictures of the artifacts that we saw. The building was fairly new (it still had that new construction smell). We went in the morning so as to get started and be finished before the rains of the afternoon arrived, and missed the rush of people from the organized tours (which were full of ugly Americans anyway).

After spending a few hours at the museum, we had Mr. Kuhn take us to a place for some souvenir shopping. I got some gifts for people back home and Marty got some charms for her bracelet. One of the places we wanted to hit was the Hotel D'Angkor because we wanted to go to the Elephant Bar. The property is owned by the Raffles Group out of Singapore and we wanted to have Singapore Slings, reminding us of the Long Bar at Raffles in Singapore. I had been there in 2006 with my friends Carla and Steven. Marty and Stu had been there in 2002. We were sad to learn that the bar did not open until 4pm, but from 7-9 it was Happy Hour so we decided we would go back that evening.

Mr. Khun took us back to the hotel, and we relaxed for a few hours. Based on the suggestion of my friend Carla, we signed up for a trip to the Floating Village on nearby Tonle Sap Lake, for the next day.

That evening, we headed back to town. We visited the Elephant Bar and had two Slings that went right to our head (ahhhh the beauty of gin) and then went to a little restaurant Marty had read about called the Khmer Kitchen. It is supposed to be the favorite place of Mick Jagger when he comes to visit. It was a mix of tourists and locals, so we knew it would be good. Marty and Stu had curry and I had a fried garlic meal. It was fun to people watch (we saw an American man and his local gal pal, who we think was a hooker) and see the gecko lizards walking on the ceiling.