The Royal Palace

I arranged for the same tuk tuk driver to pick me up on Sunday and take me to the Royal Palace and the National Museum.

The Royal Palace was very interesting except you didn’t actually go into the Palace. You were on the Royal grounds and you could go inside the Coronation room, the Silver Pagoda, the White Elephant stables and some other little buildings which housed some of the history and treasures of the palace, but not inside the Palace itself.



A cannon ball tree



I shared a guide with a couple from Australia and the guide told us that the King got to sit on the Royal Throne only once in his entire life and that was at his coronation. 

One of the buildings at the Royal Palace

He also only got to have the crown on his head once in his life and that was also at this coronation. I wondered if the King or any King snuck into the Coronation room at night just to sit on the throne.


The Coronation building

The Coronation room was a long rectangular room with tiles on the floor and a wool rug woven with the exact design as the tile floor. The room was probably at least 2 ½ times the length of my house. There are busts of some of the former Kings around the throne.



Getting the building ready for a coat of paint

The present King is not the oldest son. If royalty is a part of the government then they are forbidden to be King. The present King is 59 yrs old, single and was a ballet dancer in France for 18 yrs. There is very little power bestowed on the King. All the power is held by the government.


the tomb of one of the former Kings

 If the King is a popular King with the people then he will have a tomb or shrine erected for his burial place on the Palace grounds.



Some art work that was partially destroyed by the Khmer Rouge

The Silver Pagoda is a temple whose floor is covered in silver tiles. I think the guide said that there is 2 tonnes of silver that was used in the Silver Pagoda. 

the Silver Pagoda

He said that the Cambodian people call the pagoda the Emerald Pagoda as there is a Buddha that was carved out of a single emerald that looked to be about 4 feet high. 

a pink marble column from the Silver Pagoda

There were also a lot of gold buddhas and silver buddhas in the pagoda as well. These treasures where taken and buried by the then King when he fled to China during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. When he returned to Cambodia after it was safe he dug them up again and placed them back in the Royal Palace.

The Royal family used albino or white elephants as their transport. The white elephant was very rare and was a symbol of something but I can’t remember what. 

A royal chair for on the back of an elephant

All the elephants in Cambodia were killed during the time of the Khmer Rouge, even the white ones.