Phnom Penh: a riverside capital rebuilding after the Khmer Rouge years

Phnom Penh sits where the Mekong and the Tonle Sap rivers meet, and is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. The Wikivoyage guide describes a city that has changed fast in the 21st century: busy, a little rough, small at heart but lively, and best explored by walking the riverfront and watching street life, since it has few standard tourist sights.

The Royal Palace. Photo: Jpatokal, CC BY-SA 4.0.

A short history

According to the guide, Phnom Penh was crowded with refugees from the war in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took the city and emptied it of civilians, leaving it to crumble for several years. It was taken by Vietnamese forces in 1979, and the guide says it has long stayed a bit rough, though things have improved. Before 1970 it was called a “Paris of the East”; a few French colonial buildings remain, and the wide boulevards the French planned have largely filled with parked vehicles and market stalls. The skyline has changed so much that new high-rises make it hard to recognize. The most pleasant place to stroll is the park-like riverfront, lined with cafés and restaurants.

Streets are numbered: odd-numbered streets run north to south, rising as you go west from the river, and even-numbered ones run west to east, rising as you go south. House numbers, by contrast, are haphazard.

What to see

• Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. The King of Cambodia still lives at the palace, but much of it is open to the public. The guide calls the Silver Pagoda and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha among the few public buildings in the city really worth seeing.
• National Museum of Cambodia. Opposite the palace, it holds a collection of art from the Angkor period and a courtyard at its center; a statue of King Jayavarman VII in a meditative pose is a main attraction.
• Sisowath Quay. The promenade along the west bank of the Tonle Sap is the thread joining sights, shops, restaurants and bars in a single walk.

Sisowath Quay. Photo: Jpatokal, CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Wat Phnom. A pagoda on a hill in a small park, marking the spot where the city was founded and always busy with pilgrims. The guide values it more for its history than its building, and notes the park is a green gathering place for locals, with monkeys.
• Wat Ounalom. Dating to 1422, it is one of the five original founding monasteries of the city.
• Central Market. A French-era building with an Art Deco dome.
• Independence and Liberation memorials. The Independence Monument commemorates the French departure in 1953; nearby, the Liberation Memorial marks the Vietnamese capture of the city in 1979. The area is popular with locals on weekend nights, when fountains and music are on.
• Phnom Tamao Zoological Park and Wildlife Rescue Center. The country’s largest zoo, made up of animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade.

The Central Market. Photo: Jpatokal, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Memorial sites

The guide notes that the city has sites connected with the Khmer Rouge regime, three of which, it says, were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2025: the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, in the former prison S-21; the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek; and the former M-13 prison west of the city. Tuol Sleng, a school that was converted into a prison in 1975, is described as a must-see for anyone interested in Cambodia’s history, with a courtyard whose calm contrasts with what the museum recalls. Choeung Ek, about 17 km south of the city, is marked by a Buddhist stupa with glass sides through which visitors can see the skulls kept inside, and by pits where mass graves were found.

Getting around

The main streets are in good shape; smaller ones can be rutted and cluttered. Options include:

• Tuk-tuks: a motorcycle pulling a passenger cabin, cheap and plentiful; drivers often do not know the way. Ride-hailing apps such as PassApp and Grab, and an electric service called TADA, offer metered fares so there is no haggling.
• Motorbike taxis (motos): cheap, with no helmets provided; traffic is chaotic.
• City buses: 13 lines running in the daytime, air-conditioned, with a free app that tracks them live.
• Cyclos, pedal rickshaws that are slow, scenic and waning in number, and bicycles for hire.
• On foot: pedestrian crossings are generally ignored by motorbike drivers, so cross slowly and look both ways; there is almost no street lighting off the main boulevards.

The guide advises against driving a car yourself, because of heavy traffic jams.

Staying safe

As in any big city, take care when walking alone at night. Phone and bag snatching in daytime is not uncommon, so keep belongings toward the middle of a tuk-tuk or between you and the driver on a moto. The guide also describes scams in tourist areas such as the riverfront, including a friendly group inviting a visitor to a dinner that turns into a rigged card game, and warns of fake monks who beg from tourists. Techo International Airport, about 20 km from the center, replaced the old airport on 9 September 2025.

The Buddhist Institute. Photo: Sundgauvien38, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Sources

• Wikivoyage, “Phnom Penh” (https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Phnom_Penh), by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Photos: Jpatokal (CC BY-SA 4.0), Sundgauvien38 (CC BY-SA 3.0). Changed here: condensed into an overview; listings, prices, opening hours, phone numbers, hotels, restaurants, embassies and clinics left out, along with the guide’s editorial remarks and accusations; each photo under its own licence.
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.