Day 1 Phnom Penh

I joined a five-day Cambodian tour with my wife and her kindergarten friend. For Cambodia there’re two seasons, the dry (November to April) and the wet (May to October). And from March (until October) onwards it’d be hot and stuffy. So January is considered to be a good month to visit the country (except for taking the dusk photo @ Angkor Wat – see comment below). Typically you can sign up for a four, five or six-day package. In our case we’d almost covered all the programmes of the six-day tour by signing up extra optional trips. For those who just want to visit Angkor Wat then there’s the four-day package. In reality though you got just two days as you’d arrive day 1 at dusk and leave at dawn on day 4.

During the trip I used Nikon D3 with AFS 24-120 f3.5/5.6 G (a new lens from KKM), AFS 17-35/f2.8 D and AFS 10.5/f2.8 DX lenses.

(Photo 1 – 3) Independent Monument: One can only take photo across the street.

(Photo 4 – 26) Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda: Both are in the same premises and no photography is allowed inside the palace or pagoda. The latter literally means Gold and Silver in Chinese since in the heyday the floor tiles were silver and the Buddha statues golden. Not much is left after the Khmer Rouge rule of three years eight months and twenty days (1975 to 1979). Nevertheless the main statue is covered with diamonds including the 25-carat one at the Buddha’s forehead.