Monday, September 12, 2016

The Siem Reap Experience - Part 2 - Culinary Immersion

Cultural Culinary Immersion:  By the time we reached the second temple of the first morning - I decided to see if I could shortcut having to buy water for myself throughout the day.  It was hot and humid, and the temple hiking was quickly dehydrating.  I gave Sith $5 and asked him if he would just keep the tuk tuk supplied so there was always water.  He readily agreed and thereafter there was always water in the tuk tuk.  The second day and beyond he even brought a cooler for the tuk tuk and kept it supplied.  I was feeling rather "brilliant" (maybe just "lucky" - see prior posting on this topic) and successful with my idea - so I hatched another one:

For the first day and a half, I followed along with what seemed to be the tourist routine -- tuk tuk to each of the temples with a stop for lunch at a place easily identifiable as lunch destination for tourists.  Yes, there was plenty of authentic food and drink -- but the locations near the temples and/or large number of seating capacity made it clear these were tourist-only food stops.  Traveling solo, I happily invited Sith to join me - and paid for his meal as well.  It was worth it to be able to ask questions throughout the lunch about the culture and traditions -- and to have him assist me in ordering my desired "locally popular" food.  But as I got to know Sith, I hatched another plan to change up the routine:  I explained to Sith that I would prefer to go to lunch stops that only Cambodians would visit -- and I inquired about some roadside stands that were cooking what, from a distance, appeared to be some sort of barbecued satay sticks.  He explained that the sticks actually held frogs and with my reassurance that I wanted to eat there, we did -- and he soon added fish, pork and soup to our lunch among ordinary Cambodians -- where the guests spoke as much English as I did Khmer (the language of Cambodians).



Another "brilliant" or lucky deviation from routine as I enjoyed it all -- especially the feeling of satisfaction that I get from those parts of my adventure that are things that most Americans, indeed most western tourists, probably wouldn't try.  And the idea played out successfully the rest of the day as we stopped for traditional Khmer snacks: fried rice covered bananas - 


barbecue corn - 
sugar cane candy -
and some sort of pod (I don't remember the name, but Sith bought many as he said his 3 year old loved them) -

By the time we returned to the Guesthouse, my confidence in my luck was soaring -- so I asked Sith if he might be willing to take me to meet his wife/son (his two daughters would be in school) at her place of work (selling eggs in a local market that no tourists go to).  Another successful day as we ate at a diner where you could tell Sith knew everyone by name and frequented directly across from his/his wife's egg selling business.  Another scrumptious success.




When my 3 day temple pass expired -- on my last full day in Siem Reap, I considered whether I should take in other sights (of course I missed some) or spend the day relaxing.  But instead I hatched another plan - just meander through some more countryside and have another typical Khmer lunch.  I explained to Sith that one of the things my girlfriend and I like to do is travel by motorbike on the backroads just to see how people live, what their houses look like and what they are doing.  I expressed extreme satisfaction with the interesting route he had taken to get me to the "floating village" (blog post to follow) -- and asked that he just pick a different route and lunch stop.

This last day trip was exactly what I was hoping for -- into the countryside another direction where I got to see people going about their daily lives including harvesting rice (also another blog post).  At the suitable time, we arrived at sort of a park-like setting at the rear of a residence -- complete with open air huts equipped with ceiling fans and hammocks.  Sith explained that this type of park-like dining/resting place was the destination of Cambodian families looking to have an escape from the confines of city life.  He further explained that he had tried to bring his family here on one occasion but that they were so busy, there was no remaining hut to be taken.


We rested and talked -- about lots of topics from his birthplace, marriage, family to USA politics (everyone has heard of the clown Trump) while feasting on a chicken that was killed and prepared just for us.  After a filling lunch, the hammocks lulled us to sleep for a short time and then we returned to the Guesthouse.

The Siem Reap Experience - to be continued...







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