We flew into Siem Reap a day earlier than planned. Our original flight was cancelled so we had a day less in Kuala Lumpur and an extra day in Cambodia. I did not mind. KL was not my favourite and instead we got to eat great food and we got to play with rats.
First big impression of Siem Reap was the rain. Big rain. We are here in the middle of the rainy season and it can seriously rain. Not all the time, but occasionally it is just like a warm shower. I don’t mean a gentle shower of rain, I mean standing unde r the shower in your bathroom. It is way too warm for wearing jackets, so you just get wet. Not really much of a problem. With the heat, you will soon dry off again. I tend to keep a waterproof bag handy that I can tuck my camera into.
In the morning, we went off on a food tasting tour. Us, a gay couple and Jared our guide. This turned out to be brilliant way to spend a few hours. The lads were Americans currently living in Japan. Jared also had his origins in the US but went native many years ago and lives in Cambodia now.
We started off with a tuk-tuk ride to the market. Here, we disappeared into a warren of small streets and passages lined with market stalls. The sheer variety of food up for sale was remarkable. All the basic fruit and vegetables were there. Plus, tropical varieties like jack fruit, durian, dragon fruit and rambutan. Citrus fruits were represented by little, intense limes and pomelos. Lot of fresh herbs. A type of broad lead coriander, parsley and many that I could not recognise. Mushrooms were there in abundance. Many different types. Big fat ones, long thin ones, oyster mushrooms and some that were new to me. The only obvious fungal omission were boring field mushrooms which are often the only type of flowering mycelium you can get in the UK.
There was a lot of fresh meat that I tried not to get too close to. The flies alone should have been enough to put you off. Fish was in abundance. Much of it so fresh that it was still flapping or wriggling. Crabs were firmly tied up. Eels were confined to a bucket. Snails were in a big aluminium tray. Other fish was laid out on ice and yet more dried and cut into weird shapes. The insects were dead. Dead and dried. Crunchy crickets and all your favourite entomological treats. Another stall was sack after sack of dried plant parts. Mushrooms, leaves, flowers, bark and other parts. These were medicines. Generally used to make a herbal tea guaranteed to cure your ailments.
Tucked in between the racks of ingredients, were people cooking up food. Little cakes, noodles and snacks of every possibly variety. We found ourselves jammed into a dark corner where we were served rich, slightly sweet coffee and a dish of wheat noodles with fried rice cakes.
Two meals later, we headed out into the countryside. Our destination was a village famed for making rice noodles. Here an elderly pair of sisters make noodles every day. They start at 3 am every morning. Rice noodles are made from rice, obviously and hard work. Maybe a little salt. The rice is crushed, soaked, fermented, boiled, crushed some more, kneaded and finally extruded through a die into boiling water. The result, a thin, light noodle, is delicious. We tried our hand at some of the processes. Everything done by hand using simple tools of wood and stone. Everything heated and cooked over a wood fire. Finally, we tried some freshly made noodles and then went off to another village where they use the noodles to make lunch.
Fresh is an important thing in Cambodia. Many people do not have fridges. Many people do not even have electricity. Fresh food is the normal. Market first thing in the morning for fresh ingredients and then everything is cooked and served fresh.
We stopped off at a little cake factory. Here a group of women were making steamed buns out of palm fruit. They had a small production line going that began with extracting the pulp from the fruit. The pulp was mixed with flour and the dough poured into little cups made of leaves. Banana leaves maybe. These then went into wood fired steam ovens. A squirt of condensed milk went into the centre of each cooked bun and they were finally packed into small boxes, also made of leaves.
Our final meal of the trip sort of brought together much of what we had seen and learnt. Rice noodles, many types of vegetables and herbs and fish for the others. All washed down with some local beer. I felt like I had eaten several days’ worth of food and it was only lunchtime. Great experience and thoroughly recommended. The company is called Siem Reap Food Tours. They also gave us a list of good restaurants in Siem Reap which proved to be worth its weight in gold.
After a short nap back at the hotel, we were ready to go and see the rats. Cambodia is one of the most mine-affected countries in the world. Hundreds of thousands of landmines and other explosives still litter the countryside, presenting a major humanitarian and socioeconomic challenge. With over 40,000 amputees Cambodia has the highest ratio of mine amputees per capita in the world. The Apopo organisation, based in Siem Reap, trains rats, dogs and people with the skills to clear landmines. The rats are light enough not set off an anti-personnel mine. They are trained to use their sense of smell to find the explosives. We watched a demonstration by Amanda the rat of how to find mines. She was really quite brilliant at her job. We felt quite privileged to be about to hold her later. These are Tanzanian long-tailed pouch rats. They go through a long training program and are looked after incredibly well. I found it quite wonderful for humans and animals to be working together like this.
