Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The weeks fly past, but boy do we cram a lot in. Monday we explored Banteay Srei Butterfly garden. Run by locals, they raise revenue from the international sale of pupae as well as from the entrance fees of $4 per person. They have 40 species of butterflies here and the guides take you round and show you the various stages of the butterflies' development. We also were shown some giant stick insects. Lovely garden and lots of photo opportunities for Paul. (See latest album).
For the evening, we decided to head out of town to Road 60 for the nightly market. An hour long walk along the dusty, rush-hour 6 lane deep crazy freeway; dodging bicycles and mopeds driving along pavements. At the night market, locals set up food stalls and stalls with clothes, both second hand and new. This was an amazing sight, there was a ferris wheel and funfare and the place was so busy. The occasional tour bus would take the Japanese round 'just looking - not tasting'. Most of the food stalls sold the same fare, grilled fish, prawns, cockles, offal and barbequed meats. We opted for chicken livers on sticks to start and then chicken wings in a banana leaf. We had heard of deep fried crickets and frogs on sticks but saw none. The only delicacy we were not going to savour was the pong tia koon - duck embryo boiled alive and eaten in the shell. You can see them partly peeping out of the shell on the stalls. Heard some vomit horror stories about those. We then sat at a stall and had a plate of noodles with battered spinach cakes with a couple of cans of coke. Banana pancakes for afters - total cost of evening just over $7. Great community atmosphere and amazing that it happens every night. Tuesday was, of course New Year's Eve. In the day we treated ourselves to a day at the pool. On one of my walks, I had discovered a hotel that offered a 'free swim' if you bought a drink. Nice hotel - rooms from $47 to $105 per night. Look it up at The River Garden dot info. The pool was ice cold but lovely and with a waterfall feature it was very relaxing. A bit of luxury can do the power of good to us budget travellers. In the evening, we headed to pub street and it was so busy. People were milling around taking photos and the crowd appeared to be mainly Cambodian. We had no trouble finding a seat in our usual restaurant Pub Street Food place as the street was busy but the pubs/restaurants were not. The usual 50 cent beers and $1.50 cocktail offers were no longer on. The main issue in Pub Street was the noise. Two towers of speakers had been set up and I had to put my earplugs in as it was eardrum bustingly loud. We headed out to a quieter area and got some drinks in the old market. We noticed that the Warehouse pub - away from Pub Street wasn't too busy and a crowd had gathered outside to enjoy the street DJ set up there. We went up to the balcony and watched the crowd build up below. What a vantage point - never seen anything like it. I've posted a video which gives you an idea of how loud it was and how busy it was starting to get. There was no trouble at all - the locals were clearly not drinking much, they were just enjoying a free open air club. Periodically, someone would open a bottle of beer and spray it into the crowd - Formula 1 champagne style. I danced on the balcony, joining in with the craziness. Great fun - lots of waving and dancing with me. The countdown to New Year started 3 minutes early by our watches. Probably one of the most amazing New Year celebrations we have ever seen. No time to nurse our hangovers the next day as we had to buy gifts for the party we were invited to. At our Guesthouse Mr. Sam So had invited all hotel guests to attend his daughter's 5th birthday party and a party for the staff. We bought some cup cakes for the staff and a skipping rope, a Whinnie the Pooh notebook and pencils for Thida. We were wowed with the Cambodian hospitality. Thida and her two friends were dressed like princesses and they presided over the birthday cake table, whilst the family took photos. Tables were set up in the courtyard for guests, we were led to a table laden with food and cold cans of beer and Sprite/Coke etc. We sat with other hotel guests and sampled the Khmer Cuisine. We were served with cockles cooked in salt and lemongrass, deep fried chickens' feet (not much meat on those!), deep fried fish in batter and pickled veg (Jack Fruit we think). The centrepiece was a Khmer curry - delicious as ever - with veg, pork pieces and pig's blood tofu - cooked conjealed pig's blood pieces. Every time we ate something the plates were filled up again. We saw off two different Swiss couples, one couple sat politely and just had a beer (the girl had a seafood allergy) the second couple had already eaten and so retired to bed early. Just a Canadian guy, Robin and ourselves polished off the offerings (offalings) - although the chickens' feet plate was never topped up. We also had the toastmaster circulating. Every 20 minutes this guy would turn up at the table and get everyone to toast to a Happy New Year. It seems that this was just a rouse to get everyone drunk. More drinks arrived on the table as drinks were polished off. Great to have a bit of authentic Cambodian culture. The class divide was in evidence on the night, though. The Lexus driving local guests sat at top table. The staff didn't seem to have much of a 'staff party' as they were serving us. We saw them later eating apart from the other guests in our breakfast hut.
Friday takes us on a 5 hour minivan ride to Phnom Penh for a couple of nights. Thanks for following us and thanks for the messages. We both wish you all a Happy and healthy 2014.
- comments