Pandoraspace

Reality Check No. 2: The Cambodian Royal Palace

The Cambodian Royal Palace is a huge complex with several buildings.  One of the more popular buildings is the Silver Pagoda, which is tiled with 5000 silver tiles weighing one kilo each. The Silver Pagoda houses a number of national treasures most of which were displayed in the open or in simple glass cases.

Another building is the Preah Thineang Dheva Vinnichay or Throne Hall where the present king of Cambodia, King Sihamoni, was crowned. Toe informed us that during the Khmer Rouge rule, some members of the Cambodian royal family, among whom was King Sihamoni, were under house arrest in the Cambodian Royal Palace. Left without any servants, King Sihamoni would often times have to clean the buildings in the palace complex including the Throne Hall where he was crowned. I presume that like the Thai royals, Cambodian royals were also treated like gods. Thus, having to clean the palace complex would have been such a humbling real life experience for King Sihamoni.

My favorite building is the Preah Thineang Chan Chhaya or the Moonlight Pavillion, which serves as a stage for Khmer cultural dances.

Considering the many treasures found in the Cambodian Royal Palace that are left in the open, I did wonder if the treasurers were real. If they are real, I hope that the treasures at the Cambodian Royal Palace would be catalogued, organized, secured and preserved.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 7th, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under 'Pinions, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.