Phnom Penh Travel Guide

The capital of Cambodia dates back to an event in the year 1327 when a rich lady called Don Penh found a tree with 5 Buddhas in it after a major flood. She endowed a pagoda to house the Buddhas and named it the Wat Phnom Don Penh, The Monastery on the Hill of Lady Penh. The city became the capital of Cambodia in 1866 and is an eclectic mix of the East and the West- a city where you’re just as likely to see Buddhist monks and food hawkers, as you’re likely to hear excellent French being spoken at a restaurant. This is a city that has old French colonial buildings standing cheek-by-jowl with beautiful pagodas, temples and palaces. It’s a bustling, busy city- a city that has only now started to recover from the trauma of the past three decades. It’s becoming an increasingly smart, bright and vibrant city- not quite Bangkok or Singapore, but with a lovely colonial charm all its own.