Before dinner last night we were entertained by a small group of school children who gave us a performance of traditional dance which lasted for about 30 minutes. Different people like different things, I’ll say no more.
Once we had eaten dinner we took a quick stroll into Phnom Penh to purchase a new Cambodian SIM card for the rest of the trip. $8 for 30GB which lasts for 30 days. Bargain!!
On the way back we passed through the night market which was extremely busy and very popular with the locals. There were lots of stores selling just about anything from clothing to street food.
This morning was our earliest start yet, we had just over a hours drive to the Oudong Buddhist Monastery where we all received a blessing from a Buddhist monk.
The temple was a very impressive structure both inside and out. The blessing itself took about 10 minutes and involved a lot of chanting.
With a brief walk through the gardens we then set off for Kampong Tralach where we had opted for a 15 minute oxen cart ride. It should have taken 40 minutes to get there but due to some really poorly managed roadworks and the locals completely ignoring the traffic controls it took twice as long to get there.
No sooner had we arrived we were sat on the back of a cart and on the way. Not the most comfortable scenario but still a brief interlude into local life. Was it worth the extra coach ride? Not really but if the dark ages are your thing then this is right up your street.
The return journey to the ship took about 1 hour and 40 minutes and instead of getting back at 1:00pm we eventually returned at 1:50pm . It put us way behind schedule for our tuktuk tour of the city, so they adjusted the departure time by a whole 15 minutes giving us just an hour to get lunch and freshen up a bit.
Because of our haste to eat and get ready for the afternoon tour we neglected to keep an eye on the approaching storm. While it was dry when we set off we had but stepped out of the tuktuk and the skies opened. Boy did it rain! So much so they called the tuktuks back for us to take refuge in. We sat waiting for 15 minutes in the hope it would ease off but when it didn’t we set off for the Central Market where we spent 45 minutes.
From then on it was pretty much a tour around the sites in the tuktuk, eventually getting back to the boat at 5:45.
A hot shower and some dry clothes and it was just time to go to dinner.
We spent the evening onboard and enjoyed taking part in a trivia quiz which was then followed by karaoke. It was a very entertaining evening with many getting involved.