Phnom Penh and the Legend of Daun Penh

There's a story they tell here in the city of Phnom Penh that is equal parts charming, spiritual, and strange.

The city of Phnom Penh traces its origins to the fourteenth century. A wealthy woman named Daun Penh, the story goes, was walking along the banks of the Chrap Cheam River, today known as the Tonle Sap, when she came across a floating trunk of the Kokei, or Koki'o tree (considered one of the rarest trees in the world) drifting on the current. Inside that trunk she found five Buddhas: four cast in bronze and one carved from stone.

Wanting to honor the Buddha and these sacred figures, Daun Penh raised a small mound near her home and placed the images there. Over time, that mound became Phnom Penh, and so a capital city got its name.

The riverside promenade that runs through the heart of Cambodia's capital is lovely, the kind of place you can walk, exercise, or simply sit and take in the view.

Come nightfall, it's harder to move through easily, because the whole stretch fills up with stalls, little tables, and plastic chairs where people sit down to eat dishes cooked right in front of them. Khmer people love to come out for dinner by the river without spending much, though there are also proper restaurants along the waterfront, ranging from the casual to the quite grand, many of them raised on stilts to make the most of the view over the river and the boats gliding past, all of them offering their own version of a pleasant dinner at their own version of a reasonable price.

Those small boats and ferries typically run an hour-long loop, carrying tourists and locals who prefer to take in the city from the water, accompanied by live music that, in my experience, tends toward the admirably enthusiastic rather than the precisely in tune.

Worth noting that this whole area is deeply touristic: the Royal Palace, the Art Museum, galleries, and all manner of interesting things, alongside elegant boutiques, small shops, and cafés scattered throughout the city.

And so the little mound that Daun Penh once raised has become, in the present day, a great and important temple that sits just across the street from the river. It is called Wat Phnom.