Our guide for the day took us to the Royal Palace first. The current king does still live on the property but was away on tour in Europe.The palace grounds contain several buildings & tombs plus the Silver Pagoda – whose floor is made of 5,000 silver blocks weighing more than 6 tons. Inside, amongst all the other treasures, a solid gold Buddha weighing 90 kilograms is studded with over 9000 diamonds.
Napoleon III had this villa built in Egypt for Empress Eugenie to stay in during the Suez Canal opening and then gave it to King Norodom a year later. There’s also a statue of Napoleon on his horse – but they took his head off and stuck King Norodom’s head on instead! ….Good recycling.
