Barbies, Buckets & Buses
After the wonders of Angkor Wat I took it pretty easy over the next couple of days. As boring as it is every so often on the road you need an ‘admin day’ or two. Plan ahead, catch up on email, that sort of stuff. My last day in Siem Reap started similarly – quite a slow day time (walk, around a bit, have a pretty average lunch, admin stuff etc). I had quite an entertaining evening.
Me and my friend Emma went out for food and I’d been banging on about trying the Khmer barbecue for ages. The have similar all over South East Asia but I’d only had them a couple of times. Essentially you have a big pan on a gas hob, or on top of hot coals, and a range of ingredients. Veg, eggs, noodles, hot water and a range of meats. You pour the water (or sometimes stock/broth) into the pan which has a kind of moat around the bottom. Then you lob in some veggies and noodles. The pan is raised in the middle and has holes in to let the heat through. You stick a lump of fat up there to lube it up. Then you barbie your meat on that top section, while the juices run into your soup in the moat. Once the meat is ready you move it to your own little bowl and add your soup. You also get some sauces and dips to further flavour it. It’s amazing!! We had beef, shrimp, snake, crocodile and frogs legs. Quick review: Beef 5/5, shrimp 4/5, snake 0/5 (unbelievably chewy), croc 3/5 (guess what – a bit like chicken!), frogs legs 4/5 (also like chicken but more tasty than the croc – must have been a big frog too – there was plenty of meat on this sucker!).
There was a slight incident where I managed to topple the pan and we lost some soup over the table, but nothing else thankfully. Oops. Then Emma spilled most of her beer over herself – and we were both still sober at this point!
After dinner we decided to visit a fish feet massage place. These have become quite popular over here now too but probably for a whacking great higher price than we paid. If you don’t know what I’m on about, it’s where you put your feet in a fish tank and they eat the dead skin away. It’s a lot nicer than it sounds! For less than 2 quid we got unlimited time with the fish and a beer to drink while we were at it. What a deal! It was ticklish at first but then quite relaxing. I was in one tank with quite small fish initially but there were much bigger buggers in the next tank – I switched to there. They definitely chewed harder but hopefully that means they were doing more good.
Later we went to Angkor What? which is a great music bar on the main drag, which is awesomely entitled ‘Pub Street’. In there the tunes were great and buying 2 buckets of booze each, got us free t-shirts. Two vats of rum and coke later I had my new shirt and was well on the way to installing a major hangover. Just what you want with a 6 hour bus journey looming.
Th bus journey to Phnom Penh the next morning with said hangover was just about bearable. Unfortunately I missed breakfast and thought I’d get lunch later. I thought wrong – our ‘lunch’ stop was only 10 minutes. Just enough time to buy some over priced Pringles. I then watched RocknRolla on the laptop for the rest of the journey. A rock n roll bus trip, right enough!
Got to Phnom Penh and the hostel I had booked had a driver waiting with my name on a board – I’ve always wanted picked up like that! A bit more rock n roll. Checked into the hostel and I was in a 7 bed dorm. Less rock n roll. It was a bit weird. Rather than the usual bunk beds it was all mattresses on the floor. Clean and cheap though so it did the job. Eventually went out for a mooch around at about 6pm. Found a night market and ate some local food. Very average and lukewarm. I was sold a vastly over priced coke. Had a day off the booze. Not at all rock n roll. A middle-aged Malaysian bloke joined me as I was eating alone. He was very friendly but I didn’t fully trust him and he seemed very interested in my travelling budget. Slightly weird.
Later I met a few others in the hostel and we made plans to visit the genocide museum at the S21 Prison and the Killing Fields the next day. It would be as tough a day as I had on my trip, but one that everyone visiting Cambodia should do.
Today’s tune of the day is an absolute classic and featured on the RockNRolla soundtrack. This is The Sonics and Have Love, Will Travel:
