A sunny and warm morning greeted us in Phnom Penh after sailing upriver all night.
Traveling by cyclo (single pushed seat by a biker) we made our way to the Royal Palace and the National Museum to learn about Khmer culture and art. Run as a kingdom, Cambodia is still the poorest of the 4 south Asian nations. Peace didn’t occur here till 1998 when the brutal Pol Pot regime finally collapsed after pol pot’s death.
The Royal palace is still the formal home of the Cambodian king and sections are open to the public. We toured the coronation hall and the silver pagoda (no photos allowed) and then walked through town to the national museum where many of the Angkor Wat era relics are being restored.
After our morning tour, we returned to the harbor for a private tour of Avalon’snew ship the RV Saigon. Built exactly the same way as our ship, she features a better laid out outdoor deck and a color scheme in blues which I found very attractive.
Either way though, clients will enjoy amazing hospitality and thanks to the shallower draft (as compared to AMA Lotus or Viking which feature 3 decks and up to twice as many guests) more intimate ports and canals. I can recommend this experience to anyone.
Planet Travel Blog 
Awesome notable buildings and art. I suspect the Cambodians’ niceness and gentle ways are what made them so vulnerable to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. I recently met some members of the Cambodian family my client met and has sponsored for citizenship here in the U.S. She and her husband met their first Cambodian friend in 1965 when he was a PhD student at the University of Washington and they’ve remained close to the family ever since. Saroeung and family did not survive the massacre. There were 11 children in the family, he being the oldest. Six survived, three came to California thanks to my client, and three remained in Cambodia. Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.
Thank you.
Love,
Juie
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