We flew with AirAsia from Bangkok's Don Muang Airport (a.k.a. Don Mueang) to Phnom Penh. AirAsia is a modern and very efficient airline; we enjoyed a smooth flight.

The view from our hotel in Phnom Penh.The immediate area is not very interesting (a number of surviving French colonial buildings are scattered here as well as along the grand boulevards), but the important sights such as the Royal Palace and Central Market are only a short (tuk-tuk) ride away.

The gasstation had a good supply of snacks, cold drinks including beer.

The frontdesk of the Cara Hotel (website)
From the lobby one enters a bar / restaurant, where the hotel has breakfast served to their guests. Dinner is very good, small portions served as tapas - but not cheap.

The Cara Hotel describes itself as a Boutique Hotel, but while the lobby is nicely decorated I found our room very spartan: not a decoration in sight! The bathroom looked cheap, the room itself was small with the airconditioning above the beds providing for an irritating airflow at times.
Television on the room featured many international channels and our room was located on the quiet side of the hotel (as requested).

I made the mistake of changing to local currency. The ATM at the airport gave out US dollars but next to it was a booth which changed the money to Cambodian Riel. I had brought some dollars myself so I changed USD 290,- and found myself a millionaire, counting KHR 1.073.000,00!
But all the bills and quotes I got during our stay in Cambodia were made in US dollars and had to be recalculated to Riel, so I could get rid of this currency. It often was very confusing.

Funny money.
Fred de Ruiter helped to clarify: 'At the funeral, the family will burn joss paper to ensure their loved one has a safe journey to the netherworld; fake paper money and miniature items like cars, houses, and televisions are burned.'

A good place to spend some money: Central Market. But an even better place may be the very modern shopping mall seen on the far left of the photo, that dome; that is where you'll find the Sorya Shopping Center.

Central Market is a peculiar building with only a ground floor.
The Phnom Penh Central Market is housed in a colonial-style building in the heart of the Cambodian capital. Its Khmer name Psar Thmay translates as 'new market', although it is more commonly referred in English as Central Market.

The Psar Thmay was built in 1937 during the French colonial period, in Art Deco style, and is painted bright ochre. It consists of four wings dominated by a central dome.
Within the four wings and around the compound outside are on sale almost anything you can think of, including electronic equipment, clothing, watches, bags, suitcases, dried and fresh foodstuff, jewellery, clothes from cheap t-shirts to krama (Khmer scarves), pseudo-antique, books including photocopied travel guides and lots of souvenirs. [www.phnompenh.gov.kh/]

Our hotel, the Cara Hotel, at night. The Rue de France sees quite a bit of traffic and I was pleased our room faced the side street (Neary Klahan).
At the other side of the block was the National Highway 5 which you could walk down for the boulevard (Preah Sisowath Quay) and restaurants but a tuk-tuk ride was only 2 dollars so the tuk-tuk became our preferred option.

Passing in the night

Through RiksjaTravel.nl (link bottom page) I had booked the hotel as well as an excursion on the first day of our stay in Phnom Penh. This excursion included a visit to the Royal Palace.

We obviously weren't the only people visiting here...
I have dedicated a seperate page on our visit to the Royal Palace & the Silver Pagoda.

We also visited the National Museum. The Museum buildings, inspired by Khmer temple architecture, were constructed between 1917 and 1924, the museum was officially inaugurated in 1920, and renovated in 1968.

The museum houses one of the world's largest collections of Khmer art, including sculptural, ceramics, bronzes, and ethnographic objects.

The Museum’s collection includes over 14,000 items, from prehistoric times to periods before, during, and after the Khmer Empire, which at its height stretched from Thailand, across present-day Cambodia, to southern Vietnam.
[Wikipedia]

Traffic can be quite chaotic. Most unnerving was the fact that while turning left the drivers often did not wait until there was a gap in oncoming traffic but rather drove against the traffic on the wrong side of the road while gradually moving to the right side of the road!

The cycle rickshaws or pedicabs are getting more rare in Phnom Penh. They are replaced by tuk-tuks; these are different from the ones in Bangkok: they attach a cabin (trailer) to a motorcycle. The motorcycle is not always powerful enough and two Western adults with a suitcase each can become quite a struggle.
But they all got the job done.

Probably more common in rural areas than in the city for I did not see this much.

Near the nightmarket, which we did not visit, this was outside on Oknha Ing Bun Hoaw Avenue.
The heat was still oppressive.

We visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which I found very impressive and profoundly dramatic.
The site is a former high school, which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979.
Tuol Sleng was only one of at least 150 execution centers in the country and as many as 20,000 prisoners were killed at this prison and interrogation center.

From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (some estimates suggest a number as high as 20,000, although the real number is unknown). At any one time, the prison held between 1,000–1,500 prisoners. They were repeatedly tortured and coerced into naming family members and close associates, who were in turn arrested, tortured and killed.
See my webpage CAMBODIA'S KILLING FIELDS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum

Our guide suggested a nearby restaurant where we could enjoy a buffet for only 9 dollars. But we preferred a small family diner across the road from the museum, had fried rice with chicken and shrimp, cola and walked to the guy in the photo for some fresh fruit as a dessert.
Over this nice lunch we managed to recover from the atrocities we'd learned of in the Tuol Sleng Museum.

During that terrible episode in the 1970s, under Pol Pot's regime, Cambodia was thrown back into Medieval times. Phnom Penh was in fact deserted, people had been driven out. A visitor on foot these days should be prepared for situations like this in Phnom Penh's back streets as well as unpaved pavements, shop stores and waste randomly stored outside.
At times it is hard to imagine that PP was known as the 'Pearl of Asia'; it was considered one of the loveliest French-built cities in Indochina in the 1920s.

One of the over 150 (300+ has been mentioned too) Killing Fields is just outside Phnom Penh.
This commemorative stupa is filled with the skulls of the victims at the Killing Field of Choeung Ek.

The memorial park here at Choeung Ek has been built around the mass graves of many thousands of victims, most of whom were executed after they had been transported from the S-21 Prison in Phnom Penh.

The boulevard ('quay') is a fascinating place for an evening stroll.
People here are getting some exercise done and (photo below) a goal is being scored while playing football.

The Preah Sisowath Quay is a busy street and people sell food, snacks, soft drinks or souvenirs until late at night.

Kids stay with their mother even when she is working her foodstall or in some shop.

Life is mainly lived within the immediate family. A network of friends hardly exists. Men don't always take their responsibilty towards a family too serious and take to drink or have a girlfriend outside marriage; or disappear altogether. Abuse of women and children is widespread.
Life can be hard in Cambodia but the average standard of living has been on the rise.

Quite demanding: "one dollar!?!"

Lizards. And the ubiquitous gecko!

This gecko fell on the ground next to us, from a tree, with a big thump.

Wat Ounalom (Ounalom Pagoda & Monastery).

This temple is the headquarters of Cambodian Buddhism.

Wat Ounalom was founded in 1443 and comprises 44 structures. It received a battering during the Pol Pot era, but today the temple has come back to life. Behind the main building is a stupa (seen on photo directly above) containing an eyebrow hair of Buddha with an inscription in Pali (an ancient Indian language) over the entrance.
[www.lonelyplanet.com]

This is one of Phnom Penh's original and most important pagodas, dating from the 15th century and located close to the Royal Palace. It was once home to hundreds of monks and an extensive religious library, but suffered greatly at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. Many of the religious artefacts were thrown into the river during the Khmer Rouge years, but a few were eventually retrieved.

More photos on my Flickr.com pages.

Check that out!

Did not dare to check this out, maybe next time.

Seems like a good slogan, but a weak government doesn't help.

After decades of civil war and political violence, corruption has pervaded almost every sectors of Cambodian public life, with a system of patronage well entrenched in society. Both petty and grand forms of corruption are widespread.
Law enforcement agencies are perceived as the most corrupt and inefficient sectors, lacking the independence, resources and capacity to effectively investigate and prosecute corruption cases. Weak systems of checks and balance, ineffective accountability mechanisms and scarce opportunities for public participation further contribute to the deteriorating situation.
The enactment of the long awaited anti-corruption law has been pending for years. [http://www.u4.no/publications/overview-of-corruption-in-cambodia/]

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Phnom Penh.

The Foreign Correspondents' Club in Phnom Penh is a public bar and restaurant along the Tonle Sap river, not far from the conjunction with the Mekong river. It is often referred to as 'the FCC,' or just simply 'the F.'
It is situated in a nice three-storey colonial-style building with wonderful views over the river.
The FCC in Phnom Penh is not a private club, like other Foreign Correspondents' Clubs around the world, but members from reciprocal clubs (like the FCC Hong Kong) get a 10% discount on food and drinks.
[http://www.fcccambodia.com/]

The stairway had impressive photos on display of the Vietnam War era.
In the bar and restaurant the FCC had a brilliant photo exhibition of portraits taken all over the world, but there was no reference to the photographer nor could the staff tell me more. Pity.
Al Rockoff was a war photographer, a Google Search will bring you many Vietnam War photos by him.

The Preah Sisovath bends away from the river for the property along the river is taken by the imposing Hotel Cambodiana, clubs and other accommodations people from the street won't have access to. The Preah Sisovath has a royal dignity to it, broad and with grass and parks. And blossoming trees.

A mother rocks her sleeping child; what I think are the remnants of a toy bear is seen hanging from the standard of the parasol.

A game is being played during lunchtime. Only when I saw the photo I realised they played for money.

Checking her out.. This is at the Russian Market.
We went to this place for my slightly outdated Lonely Planet guidebook stated that trinkets from Russian times could still be picked up here. We were disappointed to find it offered only the usual t-shirts, jeans, caps, phones, dvd's and other run-of-the-mill, mediocre souvenirs.
It was also cramped, hot and damp.

Business is slow, the days are long.

The food department of Russian Market did provide for a few nice photos.

Helpful links:

Riksja Travel / www.cambodjaonline.nl
Phnom Penh on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields
World Travel Guide - Things to see in Phnom Penh