hello, phnom penh!

I took advantage of a virtually free Saturday morning to walk along Street 240 in my new city. Street 240 is tree-lined, and full of souvenir shops and restaurants.

The main purpose of the stroll was a visit to a secondhand bookstore I'd heard about, D's Books. I bought High Fidelity, Angela's Ashes (it's time for a re-read!), and The Nudist on the Late Shift (real-life quirky Silicon Valley characters).

Ninety-five percent of Cambodians are Buddhist, and the monks' clothing adds a lovely pop of orange to the sidwalks.

In the heat of the day, a big group of people of all ages were eating, kicking flip flops around and chatting underneath a pagoda near the river across from the Royal Palace, where King Norodom Sihamoni lives. A woman had climbed down a steep set of stairs to the river to take advantage of the free water to do laundry. By this point in the day, I was dripping with sweat and my sunglasses kept sliding off my nose. These little girls in the photo were napping in the middle of it all.

In the background of this street sign is one of the bulidings of the Royal Palace complex.

A couple streets away, I saw these outside of an artist's workshop. I suspect they were positioned by a seventh-grade boy...

Religious incense burners are found all over the place in Phnom Penh.

These were both taken through a fence, as I didn't feel like paying for admission to the Royal Palace Complex. The first gave me a good chance to put my rotating LCD screen to good use!

She had just finished pouring a big bottle of water over herself, which we all felt like doing in the burning sun.

Lunchtime, of course involving rice.

Fruit and flowers!