What an amazing day in Phnom Penh! We started with a visit to the Silver Pagoda and Royal Palace. They are exotic, beautiful, well kept and almost beyond imagination! The Silver Pagoda is called that by tourists because the floor is made up of blocks of silver over 2 pounds from all the recalled and melted money of French Indo China. The room is huge, at least 60 feet long and 30 wide. The riches in the pagoda don’t stop there – the locals call it the emerald pagoda because of the Buddah carved from one piece of emerald that is about 18” high. There are several gold Buddahs – one standing one of over 180 pounds of gold and encrusted with over 2000 diamonds including a 25 carat one in the crown and a 20 carat diamond in the chest. Many of the Buddahs in the pagoda are gold and have diamonds on them.
We asked how these riches survived the Pol Pot regime and during that time, the king was under house arrest in the palace and they were not desecrated like so many other Buddhist temples and art.
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