February 1

We began the day with a visit to the Royal Palace.  The grounds contain many buildings including the king's residence, the throne pavilion, several other pavilions and the temple of the Emerald Buddha.  All are, as usual, ostentatious and unbelievably ornate.  Also as usual I wasn't really impressed with the display of wealth when there is so much poverty here.  One of the Buddhas contains 90 kg of gold, thousands of diamonds (two of more than 20 carats) and countless other precious gems and the floor around it is made of approximately 6,000 silver tiles each weighing over a kilogram.  The throne room of course contains much gold and precious carpets.

From there we went to another temple which I didn't go into.  I spent the time taking photographs of the kids and people selling food, drinks and souvenirs.  We went to a small  Khmer restaurant for lunch.  I had shark fin and crab soup and it was the second best soup I have had on the whole trip.  it was quite funny because I was the only one who ordered two dishes and I asked to have the soup first.  Before long Brian was served a bowl of soup and everyone else sat and waited.  And waited.  At some point Brian wondered if perchance he had been served my soup by mistake.  He was correct.  After they took it away to get mine I said I wondered if the soup I would get was just his reheated.  We had several laughs over other related comments.  I asked for a DNA test of my soup to ensure that there was no saliva in it!  My other dish was a fish Amok but it wasn't nearly as good as what I had had previously.

After lunch it was off to the "Russian Market".  I can scarcely begin to describe that place.  It is housed in a building which is very hot and stuffy and dim and too crowded for me.  The aisles are barely wide enough for two people to pass and the stalls are cram packed to overflowing with everything from souvenirs to jewelry to sculptures to clothing to silks to luggage to food.  It is like a rabbit warren and I would probably have had trouble finding the way out if the guide hadn't been with me.  I should have tried to take a photo in there but I was in too much of a rush to get out after I purchased a new piece of luggage.  Sadly the new bag won't reduce the weight of my back pack but it should save me from having to sit on my suitcase to close it.  It will also allow me to pick up more items on the remainder of the trip if I see anything interesting.  I may have to pay for excess baggage from Hue to Hanoi but that is alright.  I should be ok for the flights home.  When I escaped from there I sat and had a beer, chatted with the guide and shared some of my water bugs with him.  Like our previous guide he was quite surprised when I pulled them out of my pack. 

Next on the itinerary was supposed to be a visit to a children's training centre and a demonstration of traditional Cambodian dance but no one wanted to go so most of returned to the hotel while a few went to do more shopping.

I felt like I might like to have room service for dinner but when I looked at the menu I saw that for a bowl of soup and one dish would cost as much as the buffet in the restaurant where there is a huge spread and no limits on how much you eat.  Guess what I decided to do.  LOL  Once again I had steamed shrimp, two kinds of sashimi, pasta salad, steamed crab, an excellent vegetable minestrone soup and dessert (two eclairs, two kinds of mousse).

Tomorrow we're off to Vietnam by bus and boat.