Phnom Penh with a Toddler

For our last leg of our 10-day trip, we headed to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Since we had a late afternoon flight we didn’t arrive in time to see much of the city. The airport is pretty close to the city but with the rush hour traffic, it took us about an hour to reach our hotel, One Residence. After unloading our bags our driver took us to the riverfront to eat dinner at a place called Bopha Phnom Penh, Titanic Restaurant. It had a large amount of outside seating with both western and Khmer (local) cuisine choices. In the evening they had local musicians play on a stage outside with a female dancer performing traditional Khmer dance every half hour. Phnom Penh with a toddler was sure to be great trip as it started out so well.

Day 1

On our first full day in Phnom Penh, we started the day with the Royal Palace, which comprises many different buildings that make up the residence of the King of Cambodia. We were able to go into the Silver Pagoda where the floor is made of silver!

 

 

After wandering the palace grounds, we headed for Wat Phnom, located at the top of a small hill.

 

Finishing our morning, we went to the National Museum where we were able to view different artifacts and come acquainted with the cultural history of the Khmer people. This was a great way for Lily to burn off some steam as it was not crowded and had a large courtyard that she ran around in while we moseyed around the museum.

 

 

 

After we finished, Lily and I headed back to the hotel while Matt and Garrett headed off into the countryside to shoot at a gun range that offered different types of weapons to fire. Obviously, the boys had a blast.

 

Once the boys returned from the gun range, we set out for our dinner cruise on the river. After we boarded the boat, we were shown to our table at the front of the boat. Looking around, I noticed there were no other tables set so we must be the only patrons. We had the entire dinner cruise to ourselves! Unfortunately, the pesky mosquitos found me while we were waiting for the boat to take off. Luckily, the boat staff had bug spray and I was saved from misery. They started the boat and we took off up the river with some good music playing, and we enjoyed our set menu dinner choices.

 

Later that evening I went out to a bar with Garrett, since he is single and likes the nightlife, while Matt stayed in with Lily. I definitely took advantage of the break from being a mom for the night. The bar we went to had a two for one drink special and after being 4 glasses of wine deep from the river cruise, I was not in good shape to have four more drinks, but I did it anyway because I can’t pass up two for one cocktails! I was having fun chatting with my brother-in-law, snapchatting my sister, talking to other girls in an attempt to get them interested in my “American brother,” and dancing with other foreigners on the dance floor. Once Garrett took me back to the hotel, I was in for a long night of sleeping on the cold bathroom floor and an even longer morning of being hungover!

 

Day 2

Matt had work meetings to attend in the morning, and at 7 am I was back to being a mom with the bonus of being extremely hungover. . . not fun. Once Matt returned, we all set out for the Hard Rock Café where I was only able to stomach a smoothie, so I lost out on that guilty pleasure, but I was still able to purchase my Hard Rock pin.

As we were gearing down our time in Phnom Penh, we spent our final afternoon learning more about the time under the Khmer Rouge, so we ventured to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum with our guide. This museum is where people were kept as prisoners, tortured, and killed. Therefore, the images and stories the guides told were very gruesome, not for the faint-hearted and definitely not for children. Lucky for us, Lily was too young to understand anything. Some of the stories were too much for me to hear and the pictures became too much for me to see, so for one portion of the tour, Lily and I stayed in the courtyard under some shade while Matt and Garrett kept up with the guide.

To finish off our trip, we headed to Central Market, which is a large circular building with halls protruding from it selling of all kinds of items. One section was dedicated to clothes, another household items, and so on. The center of the market sold mostly jewelry and silver. Matt bought some sunglasses, we bought a gift for a relative, and Lily got a silver elephant children’s bracelet that Matt bought for her.

Don’t Forget to Pack: Summer clothes, sunscreen, hats, and bug spray, the usual items for Southeast Asia destinations.

Food: We ate mostly western style food, but at the Titanic restaurant we ate some Khmer dishes.

Observation on Phnom Penh: This city is definitely up and coming for tourists. However, the number of touristy things to do is lacking and we saw most of what there was to offer in the 2-3 days we were there. It is pretty cheap to stay there, so your money can go a long way.

Hotel Review: The hotel, One Residence, was nice and in a close proximity to the river and the tourist areas by Tuk Tuk. The hotel offered motorbikes and bicycles for guests to rent to get around town, too. The room did have a smell of cigarettes coming through the AC units and the seating area in the living room did not offer much room for lounging, but overall it was a nice serviced apartment.

Things we didn’t do but wanted to: I think we saw everything we wanted to see and do!

Check out more blogs about our travels here.

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