What is Wat Phnom?

So even though Cambodia has a king it's a lot like england, constitutional monarchy. It is also the capital and centered around a huge man made hill with a temple named after the priestess who founded Phenom Phen

Indiana Jones and the temple of the small hill

This is Wat Phnom The center of the city of Phnom Penh. This is where Lady Phnom found four golden buddha statues inside of the tree. Actually a much more believable story than the one of Joseph Smith, so I'm inclined to believe it. Crazier things have happened, evidence: El Ron Hubbart's religion. It is covered in nagas and inside are like a thousand buddhas and a lot of candles.

I call this one "The Lazy Rocky"

Yes the giant smiling dogs have penises

These are nagas. The khmer people believed they were magic beings that they descended from thousands and thousands of years ago. From an evolutionary standpoint if they came from the ocean they might be kinda right. These ones are really really big. There are also woefully under endowed giant stone dogs at the very top. They have really nice teeth, but then again walking around in cambodia you will see literally hundreds of dentist shops... and no one was able to tell me why.

It's probably for the best that I'm not in one of these

There are engravings everywhere, most of them are a lot like this one. For being hundreds of years old they have taken very very good care of them. I stopped counting after the 8th one. most of them depict these topless priestesses and the lady Phnom.

This Buddha seemed kinda judgey 

This is the inside of the temple, not a level from Soul Caliber, but almost. It is very beautiful, and there are still monks who take care of it night and day. There are over fifty candles, and the Buddha at the back is incredibly tall. The candles are pretty tall too. All the walls have beautiful paintings of khmer ancient history on them. basically the whole place is super nice, historical, and almost looks like it could be a movie scene.

There are quite a few monkeys just hanging around outside the temple. The little leashed one was really cool, we monkeyed around for quite a bit. I tried to take a selfie with the big one and he just got really mad, showed me his "crap your pants big" teeth and chased me around trying to bite me. So I have come to the conclusion that niceness and size run on an inverted scale with monkeys.

Last But not least, is what looks to be a giant homage to the evil cobra from Rikki-Tikki Tavi. It's not, I checked. Also, kudos to anyone who caught that reference. This thing is probably the biggest snake anything I have ever seen before. It's even wrapped around a giant clock and the tail runs up past the temple. It is completely made out of a wicker  type substance, I'll spare everyone a "My Side of the Mountain" joke. I think this was one of the most amazing things I have seen so far on this trip.

There is much more to come, next up, the Royal Palace!