The only decent cup of tea I've had in 3 weeks!

Today was my last day in Phnom Penh, and it has been great! This morning I headed back to Central Market and got some more silk, and a few more gifts. Then it was back to relax in my room and get some knitting done. The total sum of knitting I've done on this trip? About one sock - pathetic! On the other hand, I have read about 12 books...

After I finished up my sock, it was time to dress up! Actually, I didn't really dress up, I just put work clothes on and headed down the street to the Raffles Hotel for afternoon tea. You would think, being in Asia, that the tea would be pretty good, right? It hasn't been. I suppose part of it is just my preference - I like my Irish Breakfast so strong that the spoon stands up in it. So the weak tea-flavoured water I've been getting hasn't exactly been giving me the kick I've been looking for. There was even a horrendous afternoon tea at my current hotel, with a Filipino couple singing bad 80s and 90s love songs. As hungry as I was, I left after barely a cuppa.

Raffles is actually a chain of hotels now, but the original one is in Singapore, and is named for the English lord who I guess founded Singapore. Now, being that I am not the historian in my family, I won't try to recall what I read about this earlier, so I'll just say that the Raffles hotel has that whole British Imperial period thing going on, and its very classy and nice. There's a Sherlock Holmes book, presumably about him solving a mystery at Raffles. And actually, the Raffles here in Phnom Penh is where Jackie Kennedy stayed on her trip to Cambodia. So, a great historical place. And they serve afternoon high tea in the conservatory.

Let me just say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself! I sat, drank a great pot of tea, ate some scones and cucumber sandwiches, and read a good chunk of the latest Sookie Stackhouse book. It was clearly an afternoon of guilty pleasures. Notice in the first picture, not only did they break out the nice silver for me, but that is real tea, the loose stuff!

Truly, I think this was the best way I could have ended my trip to Thailand and Cambodia. Now I've got a long (long!) day of travel ahead of me, and then I get to rest for a bit...before heading off to China! Now, if I can't find a decent cuppa there, I'm really going to worry.