On the first day of our trip we started by going straight to NagaCorp Casino in Phnom Penh. We spent the first couple of hours with Tim McNully (CFO-pictured below) and his associates learning about NagaCorp’s history and business. It was interesting to learn how the founder, Dr. Chen, had been given a 70-year casino license monopoly in Phnom Penh and how he had successfully grown the casino from a boat casino to now being a hotel-casino with two separate buildings. Dr. Chen is now worth $3.6 Billion according to Forbes so I’d say it was a worthwhile venture!

After lunch is when things really got exciting. We followed-up NagaCorp by going to the National Museum where we learned about Cambodia’s ancient history and looked at sculptures of Khmer art as well as Vishnu and Shiva sculptures from the Hindu religion.

Additional pictures from the National Museum:

After leaving the National Museum we went to the Royal Palace, one of my highlights of the trip. This area was beautiful and it was amazing walking around seeing how much detail had been put into all of the tiny elements of the buildings, even the areas that I needed my camera to zoom in on. This palace brought back memories of Rome as this area was on that level of greatness.

Additional pictures from the Royal Palace:

Click here to continue on to my second day in Phnom Phen.