HOTELS IN PHNOM PENH

Phnom Penh's history begins with the Lady Penh who discovered five Buddha images concealed in a tree, had a pagoda named Wat Phnom Don Penh built on the same spot. The city was founded nearly a century later, taking its name from the pagoda, that became the capital 1866. Following its recent traumatic history, parks, gardens and elegant villas are now being restored, tree-lined boulevards still reflect the elegance of the city's French colonial past, and camera-clicking tourists sit in pedicabs which weave their way leisurely through theincreasing numbers of cars and motorcycles. This pleasant scene,coupled with the current bustle of optimistic commerce, belies thechilling fact that the city stood abandoned and empty from 1975-1979 during the forced evacuation by the detested Khmer Rouge.