So Wat Phnom ("Mountain Temple") and its surrounding park are pretty breathtaking. The temple (right) is one of the tallest structures in the relatively low-lying city, and its hilltop placement means it overlooks most of the city from its northern vista. The temple itself is in the spirit of the rest of the capital city - definitively Buddhist, but with some sense of context of country. The most notable part of the park to me is the landscape over which the temple looks: the giant clock built into the ground is the recumbent centerpiece of a sort of open-air zoo. I was distracted from the elephant-feeding station (US2 for a bushel of bananas to feed them) by the bevy of monkeys running freely about the park. I saddled up next to a group of monks feeding a family of monkeys (I tried to come up with a clever pun for this scenario, but decided the sentence was funny enough on its own); the above picture was taken with "mama monkey" before I got a little too close to her little one (below). Once I snapped a pic of her baby, she sized me up for a brief moment, showed her teeth, and quickly slapped me on my uncovered forearm - and bear in mind, this uncovered forearm had just spent the day in the deadly Cambodian sun, unprotected. Needless to say I was in some pain, and my stream of expletives translated well enough to scare off the monkeys, the monks, and just about anyone else near me in the park. Touche, monkey. Next time I'll admire the cuteness of your progeny from afar.
So Wat Phnom ("Mountain Temple") and its surrounding park are pretty breathtaking. The temple (right) is one of the tallest structures in the relatively low-lying city, and its hilltop placement means it overlooks most of the city from its northern vista. The temple itself is in the spirit of the rest of the capital city - definitively Buddhist, but with some sense of context of country. The most notable part of the park to me is the landscape over which the temple looks: the giant clock built into the ground is the recumbent centerpiece of a sort of open-air zoo. I was distracted from the elephant-feeding station (US2 for a bushel of bananas to feed them) by the bevy of monkeys running freely about the park. I saddled up next to a group of monks feeding a family of monkeys (I tried to come up with a clever pun for this scenario, but decided the sentence was funny enough on its own); the above picture was taken with "mama monkey" before I got a little too close to her little one (below). Once I snapped a pic of her baby, she sized me up for a brief moment, showed her teeth, and quickly slapped me on my uncovered forearm - and bear in mind, this uncovered forearm had just spent the day in the deadly Cambodian sun, unprotected. Needless to say I was in some pain, and my stream of expletives translated well enough to scare off the monkeys, the monks, and just about anyone else near me in the park. Touche, monkey. Next time I'll admire the cuteness of your progeny from afar. 
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