Nico's Vacation - Day 5

17/12/2009 - Morning call was pretty early, but I woke up earlier than that since there were 3 of us in a room. Went down for breakfast quite early too so that we can try out the buffet in our own sweet time. Breakfast for me that morning was soup rice noodle, toast, coffee and fruits. Other than that, the breakfast buffet also has fried mee, fried rice, some random oriental stir fry dishes, omelette, porridge etc. I particularly like the soup rice noodle.

Started the city sightseeing tour at 8 and first stop was the Independence Monument and then to the Tonle Sap river side before proceeding to the Royal Palace. Unfortunately, the prime minister of Vietnam were visiting that day and therefore we can't go in to the Royal Palace itself, just the exterior gardens and Silver Pagoda. One of the interesting sights in there was the Cannon Ball tree and there are a couple of buddhas under the tree and they called it the Buddha tree. Apparently the flowers bloom in the morning and withers in the afternoon. Next stop was Wat Phnom - a temple on a 27m high hill. There are quite a few people praying in there and inside the temple the guide asked us to wash our hands with the 'holy' water which was supposed to bring good luck...hmm.

Lunch was at TonleBassac restaurant - international buffet -with most of the food of the type Vietnamese and Thai. We then spent about an hour at the Russian Market (Psar Tuol Tom Pong). It is an indoor market but it's quite stuffy and narrow. Most of the vendors sells souvenirs, handicrafts, jewelery, wood carvings etc. There are also some food stalls selling baguettes(french bread), fried and soup noodles etc. After a full one hour of free sauna, we proceeded to the Tuol Sleng Museum (Genocide Museum). The building itself used to be a school which was turned into a prison, a centre of detention and tourture. The exhibits are mostly about the barbarism of the Khmer Rouge leaders and stories of the victims.

Next stop was the Casino! It's actually owned by a Malaysian but not Genting. We got a 4USD voucher bet each courtesy of the tour company. The guide taught us a way to win 2USD each by playing banker-player. It is really a sure win method. But with 4USD voucher, we need to top up 10USD each and bet 6USD on Banker, 4USD + 4USD free voucher on Player. So if the Banker wins, we get 12 back which makes us profit of 2. If the player wins, we get 8 back which make us a net profit of 2 (8 - 6 which we lost by betting on banker). Such a tourism gimmick! Drinks are free as long as you are gambling. Managed to try out the Angkor Beer there which was pretty ok.

The last sightseeing stop of the day was Central Market - an open air market selling stuff that are pretty much the same as the Russian Market. Didn't manage to buy anything since we didn't feel the need to get souvenirs so early in the trip. Dinner was at a Vietnamese-Chinese restaurant called 'Yee Bo'.