Archives for "Cambodia"

18th July 2007<
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The agency’s bus was our main means of transit in Siem Reap for the past few days. On the last day, we figured we should at least check out the town on foot by ourselves. First, we hitched a tuk-tuk to Central Market (New Market) *woo hoo!

Central Market area

There was nothing much in the Central Market that you could not find in the Old Market. Most of the trinkets selling in both places were similar. But surprisingly, the stuffs in Central Market were much cheaper than in the Old Market. We thought things in the Old Market (emphasizes on the word ‘OLD’) should be cheaper. *kena con again -_-”.

EatAllYouCanShung managed to get a great bargain though. He got for himself a beautiful oil painting of Angkor Wat for a mere price of USD18. The seller quoted it for USD65 initially! Thanks to me *wakaka we had it at such good price. (I suspect we can bargain for an even lower price. Maybe as low as USD10).

They have beautiful paintings, especially oil paintings. Great as mementos.

Pics of the Central Market…looks alot like the Old Market right?

There’s a food court within the New Market. The food wasn’t bad and the price was reasonable. *can’t remember how much was it lar.
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Decided to check out those nice looking cafes or coffee houses but guess what?? We got lost! I don’t understand how we could have gotten lost in a tiny winy town like that *@_@ So idiotic. We didn’t have a map with us either. Geez… Went in circles. Locals stared at us clowns, watching our blurpot faces. We kept on returning to the same damn place. *smacks forehead
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Finally, found a so-so Cambodian style cafe. Cambodia beer is really good and were ridiculously cheap …USD0.50 per can *OMG!! How cool is that?! My personal favs are Angkor Beer and Beer Lao.

Late noon is the best time to explore the town. That’s when it wasn’t that hot and humid. That’s when the town comes to life.

There were many mini mobile hawkers selling local snacks and such. They made rounds around the town looking for tourists.

Mobile stall selling Cambodia instant noodle

I had the best instant noodle i’ve ever had! I’m not exaggerating. Tad too spicy but reeeaaal goooood!! *yummy

The best instant noodle ever!

Nanpuchai is something like a flat dumpling with veges as stuffing. *tasty stuff! Comes with some ‘watery’ chili sauce or something. Sweet and spicy

MicrophoneChiang learning to cook

Come join me

Oooo… mouth watering

Last bite

There were something like ‘mamak’ stalls there too. *wakaka. Some we tried but some we did not coz those could also be found in Malaysia.

CRAP WE ATE:

This tastes like the daikon cake (white radish) or ‘lo bak gou‘ in Malaysia but not as sweet. It’s quite small in size (as big as an egg only). To deep in chili sauce before eating

Cambodia ‘lo bak gou’

White-duck egg & brown-chicken egg

Ahh… The popular chicken eggs in Cambodia. The yolk had already been drained out from the egg. Inside, were inserted pepper and other spices before roasting. The texture and taste is like our ‘agar agar’ sprinkled with salt and pepper.

Eggy roasting in the sun

Ooooh … If you ever go to Cambodia, this is a must-try! A very very popular snack in Cambodia. It’s called ‘balut’. It’s fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. *damn gross! I think this delicacy could be found in most South East Asia except in Malaysia.

It’s good to go with salt, pepper and lime. If you’re lucky (should i say unlucky), the embryo would have begun to form a real chick in the shell. Imagine eating a dead baby duck … with feathers, beak and all… *ewww! Once you peel off the shell you can actually see the blood veins vessels *+_+!

The famous ‘balut’. See the feathers and blood vessels.

Well you see, #*@!FoulJoe dared everyone to eat it. We looked high and low for these babies! (no pun intended) He didn’t eat it but his face expression was priceless! *wakaka

I can’t really describe the taste of ‘balut’ but i for your info, none of us who tasted barf or got sick after eating. You have to try it for yourself

CRAP WE DIDN’T EAT:

Something like rojak

Pau!

Roasted chicken

We found quite alot of interestingly named restaurants. To name a few, ‘Angkor What?’, ‘Dead Fish Tower’ …even ‘Kamasutra’! *cheeky!

Kamasutra????

Warehouse here doesn’t sell clothes…sell food lar

Siem Reap was quite a happening place at night, especially near the Old Market area. Pubs and bars filled with tourists.

Lunatics roaming the streets

Happening pub

Dinner at a local diner was fun and satisfying. Some food worth a mention are the ‘Mexican Cheese Chicken’, ‘Coconut Rice with Fish’, ‘Cambodia Steak’ and ‘Cambodia styled Curry’. Good stuffs. I especially liked the Mexican chicken dish and coconut rice. *thumbs up! For curry fans out there, i have to warn that the curry in Cambodia is not really spicy but sweet and a lil’ bland. Oh, well everyone else liked it, so…

Last dinner in Cambodia

Our last stop at the Night Market. The market was very difficult to find and the alley heading towards it had no lampposts. Extremely dark and very dangerous. Best to check it out in large groups.

The Night Market was nicely furnished. Very tropical like and classy. Same old junks but were more expensive though.

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Note:
All nice pics taken with my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX8, the not so nice pics are courtesy of other PigDog Klan* members