Adrian and I started the day with traditional noodle soup and fried bread for breakfast, then headed to S-21, the highschool-turned-prison/torture center. Walked through rooms and rooms of pictures of Khmer people who had been tortured and killed, stood in the cells that they were kept in that still had dried blood on the tiles and fingernail scratches on the walls, watched a documentary on the horror that happened in between 1970-1998 in those buildings and around Cambodia. It was sobering and we were quiet for a long time after leaving...
On the way to the famous "Russian market" we wandered through a few different Khmer food markets. These are really something to see: tiny side streets lined with a rainbow of fruit--mangos, rambutan, pomellos, mangosteen, dragonfruit, oranges, pineapple, lychees, different sizes of bananas, wax apples, tamarind, limes (etc.)-- stalls have hundreds of dried crabs and every size of dried fish hanging from them, one whole street was filled with live chickens and geese and chicks all tied together by thier feet. Live fish, shrimp and eels flop on the ground. Baskets are filled with fried bugs, spiders, peeled and fried frogs on sticks; bags overflow with various types of rice, beans, dried shrimps and spices. Around the corners are women and men crouched over buckets filled with water cleaning fish, cutting open animals, cooking bananas over homemade fires, drying fish in the sun in woven baskets. The streets smell one moment like cooking pastry, then like fish...flowers..exhaust...feces...sewer...cooking fire smoke...I watched how a live goose goes from sitting on the ground quacking away to becoming something you see ready to buy in Loblaws...
Chickens, ducks and other fowl tied by thier feet in bunches of 5-6
[Let me inject a quick story here from another traveller i met on the bus: his friend was walking down a cambodian market street and saw animals in cages. in one cage was dogs and another puppies. she cooed over the puppies and played with them a bit until the stall over came over. he pointed at the puppies and said, "you like?" and she smiled and said yes and petted one that was extra cute. the man reached into the pen, picked up the puppy, snapped its neck and handed it to the woman. apparently the woman dropped the dog and started to cry and the stall guy was totally confused... I also have a story about dog brains but Ill spare you that one right now]
Where we are staying is a very local area--no white people! People stare at me curiously a lot (Adrian is asian so for some reason he is exempt). We are the only foreigners in restaurants, which means we get the "foreigner" menu that is in random english (great!) but is at least twice as expensive as the regular menu (not so great). Its still super cheap tho so I guess I cant complain...
Tomorrow morning we head to Sihanoukville by local bus...I am happy to be heading to the beach because it is stinking sticky hot here and there is no relief. You take a shower and literally once you have dried off you are covered in sweat again. It will be nice to have a breeze and (i didnt think i would ever say this) to see some tourists again.
I am munching on durian pieces out of a plastic bag as I write this...yum! It seems once it is peeled it doesnt smell that bad anymore (the fruit has a really nasty ammonia type rotting smell to it). I have been eyeing up some deep friend bread/pocket-like things that they sell on the street out of the carts...the prob is no one has been able to tell me what is in them yet....maybe Ill get a couple and get Adrian to have the first bite to clear it of shrimp! (I am super allergic to shellfish, esp shrimp). I had a bit of a scare in Chiang Mai with papaya salad that made it difficult to eat and drink for a few days--apparenlty just picking the shrimp out of something does not make it okay to eat. Hard lesson learned.
Tasting the pocket-thing at a bus rest stop...they are filled with sweet toasted coconut!
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Going to take a shower and a nap then maybe a shower again. Excited about what new things we are going to eat and drink for dinner! Last night I had an AMAZING can of stout called Black Panther. Nice black licorice taste, but at 8% i could only drink one LOL. The beer's slogan was "Feel the power of the black panther." I might finally try Cambodian brewed Guiness ("Guiness foreign stout")...have been putting it off because of how gross the Belize brewed Guiness was... Maybe we will do some karaoke? ;)
