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| The view for sunset cocktails |
So I have to start off this post, with last night’s food
tour, which was fantastic. It started
when I was picked up from the hotel by the Australian lady who runs the
tour. She has been in Cambodia just over
a year, and was previously a travel agent who took other agents around Asia,
but she said she has always been a foodie, and so taking other tourists around
to her favourite eating spots came naturally.
Our first stop was for a sunset cocktail at a sky-top bar 23 floors up
at Phnom Penh tower. It was a fantastic
spot, and a bit of an adventure to get to, as the top floor is currently undergoing
a massive renovation. So in true
Cambodian style after taking a lovely elevator 22 floors up, we then climbed up
some stairs through a complete construction zone, with people welding, grinding
etc, and then emerged out onto an amazing rooftop with a spectacular view out
over the city. It was a brilliant spot
and not one I would have found otherwise!
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| Night view from Sky Bar |
On the tour with me also (Giss didn’t come as she still wasn’t
feeling up to it) was German girl, a
girl from Singapore and an American couple.
So after enjoying our Cocktail and watching the sun disappear behind the
haze cloud that seems to be constantly present here, we headed back to the
tuk-tuks for our next stop, which was a local market. The markets here I had already seen a bit of,
but they are great fun, always buzzing with activity and with plenty of interesting
foods to see, and full of interesting smells as well as plenty of locals who
seem to find us as interesting as we do them.
We stopped at a dessert vendor first, to try some of the local sweets
which were fantastic. Cambodians take
their sweets very seriously, as apparently they have a real sweet tooth. So
everything from shaved ice with condensed milk, to lentils flavoured with sugar
and coconut milk was available here, and I enjoyed all of it, though the
lentils were surprisingly yummy and
probably took my vote for the best.
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| The dessert vendor at the market |
After that we tried some local fruits available, including mangosteens,
longans, rambutans, and some mini-apple type things whose name I have
forgotten. Some of them I had tried before but they were all quite yummy. Then I heard Ducky (our guide) say “oh good
the bug man is here tonight” which is when, as the French would say; Shit got
real. I had a feeling some boundaries
may be crossed with this tour, but here it was staring me right in the
face. Bug time. This vendor had several delicacies on offer,
including crickets, water beetles, chickens livers, grilled snake, meal-worms,
and quails eggs complete with
fetus. At this point I decided to just
hang back and see how the other tourists took their tastes before diving in, in
other words, I was terrified. It seems I
was the only one however, as they all got stuck in especially the German girl
who put everyone else to shame. She even
opted to try the quail egg with fetus, that’s just a fertilised quail egg that
has been cooked after the fetus has developed for a while, not sure why but I found
that the most disgusting, maybe it was because Ducky warned me if you notice
something crunchy when you eat it, you’ve just found the beak.
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| The bug man! From L to R meal worms, crickets, prawns, snakes |
I didn’t chicken out completely, and tried the crickets,
which weren’t too bad, that taste was ok but you ended up with a heap of
cricket shell stuck in your mouth after, and the snake, which was tough as
leather. Suffice to say neither of these
items will be appearing on the menu when we get back home.
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| More bugs, including quails eggs, with fetus or without |
After that it was on to our final dinner
destination, a proper Cambodian BBQ.
This is held in a large open plan restaurant, where everyone just grabs
a table, and you can either BBQ yourself at your table, or just order the food
cooked by the pro’s. Thankfully we went for the pro-cooked option, and removed
the risk of us destroying the food at the table. The large breweries here also employ beer
girls who serve up jugs of beer at each table, they are paid no salary, and
only earn a commission based on the amount of beer they sell. So our glasses never sat empty for very long,
but I’m not sure it’s the best way to promote responsible consumption! Once we were settled in the food started to
arrive, and boy was there a lot of it! We ended up with deep fried frogs,
calamari, beautiful grilled pork, vegetables and noodles, as well as a whole
fried/baked fish, which I think may have been some kind of catfish, definitely
a rive
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| The fest at the Cambodian BBQ |
r fish. You are also given a big
bowl of a mild coconut curry sauce to pour over the fish, as well as sides of
tamarind sauce, a yoghurt type sauce, and a beautiful mix of salt, sugar,
kampot pepper and lime juice. It was all
amazing, and I was so stuffed by the end of it, I felt like I was going to
burst! From there I retired to the hotel
to get some rest and prepare for the next day.
We started off with a lie in at the hotel, which is
absolutely lovely. I’m so glad we
changed hotels as being sick sucks, but it is much easier to bear in a lovely
comfy room with big windows and air conditioning! It seemed I had picked up Giss’s tummy bug
just to complement my head cold, so after lazing around for a while, I decided
it would be too sad to waste the day in the room , so I decided to head out to
the Russian market to “test the waters” so to speak, and see if I could cope
with being away from a toilet for more than 15 minutes (after popping a couple
of immodium of course).
The Russian market is named this because originally it was
the popular market for foreigners who were mostly Russian in the days it was
formed. I don’t know if there is still a
large Russian community in Cambodia, I haven’t seen much sign of it if there
is. The market is much less organised
than the Central market we had been to previously, but apparently was much
cheaper and with a wider range. The
Tuk-Tuk driver from the hotel dropped me over to the market and promised to
return in 1 hour to pick me up, I figured I should be able to last at least an
hour.
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| The fish course |
So I strode into the market, with tummy churning and cheeks
clenched, to see what bargains lay in store.
Shopping in Cambodia is certainly cheap, though it is very dependent on
your bargaining skills, and mine aren’t so crash hot. I always end up feeling too guilty! So wandering through the market I was having
a hard time finding anything that really grabbed me. It was a variety of stores, from the usual
knock off t shirts and shorts, as well a shops selling a large variety of
souvenirs, mostly carved wood items, oil burners, statues etc. While much of the stuff is very nice, I think
having to try and find places for all our existing stuff in a small house has
made me much less impulsive!
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| Cocktails on the roof |
My only purchase from the market ended up being a small oil
painting on a canvas sheet, which I picked up for $2 (originally $4). Other than that I still enjoyed wandering
around and taking in the sights. Today
everything seemed to be much quieter, the roads were very quiet on the way
there, and the market itself was pretty empty as well, which I was grateful
for, as in my delicate condition and considering how tight the paths were here,
it wouldn’t have been much fun when packed!
It was interesting the way the market was broken up, as at one point I
realised I had left tourist part and wandered into the locals zone, where they
sell scooter tyres and door locks instead of hand bags and chopstick sets. There was also a large food section, which
had some great, and some not so great aromas emanating from it. All in all while I didn’t find much to buy it
was nice to be out and about and I survived so I felt safe to at least head out
again later.
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| The sunset. Nawwww |
Thankfully we were both feeling up to it, so that night I
took Giss to the sky bar I had been to the night before to enjoy a sunset and a
cocktail, which was fantastic again. The staff are all so lovely and welcoming,
and always excited to have a chat with you about where you come from and what
you’ve been up to in Cambodia. I’m not
sure if they enjoy the chat more, or if they just love a chance to practice
their English. So we sat and enjoyed our drinks and the view
for a couple of hours, before heading back to the hotel for an early night, as
we have the wildlife park tour tomorrow.
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