FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: February 2024

Old market

It was time to make our way back to Phnom Penh. We were picked up at 0700 for our long drive with a couple of toilet and snack stops. We arrived at the Palace Gate Hotel and were checked in by 2pm. We opted for afternoon high tea at our Colonial Hotel to save time and to save space for our evening food tour. Each set at USD14 was a great price for 2 people! There was a choice of Asian or Western and we opted for the tasty Asian which included spring rolls, tempura prawn, mini fish amok, banana fritters, banana pudding, coconut pudding and fruit.

The Asian set

Just enough to fill the belly

With time to spare, I was sorely tempted to squeeze one last massage in! However, I dutifully napped the afternoon away whilst the others shopped for souvenirs at the Central market. We reconvened at 1730 at the lobby for our tuk tuk food tour with Mr Borei. We wandered around the old market trying out local snacks and tropical fruits. I had never seen nor tried mango plum or milkfruit which was surprising for someone who spent so much time in South East Asia! Mango plum tasted almost like a mini mango, and milk fruit was similar to a custard apple. We did worry about the state of the meats and seafoods...and wondered what happened to the goods they couldn't sell? Let's not think too hard about that...

On the tuk tuk ready to go

Ours was a large tuk tuk that fit 6

It was hot. Traffic...

Mango plum. The locals call it Ma Prong

Milk fruit

This was what it looked like inside

Similar to the chinese sesame bread

Shrimp cracker

Super crunchy and addictive!

Mr Borei's favourite

Sticky rice with filling

Meat anyone?!

Snails

Our tuk tuk has party lights!

For dinner, we finally had a truly authentic meal. Mr Borei took us to a restaurant where we actually saw locals, and we didn't eat beef lok lak, fish amok, or chicken cashew! He ordered 6 very different but delicious dishes. We ate so much...but that didn't stop us from having drinks at the roof top bar to say goodbye to Phnom Penh! It has been an amazing week and our time here was so special being able to explore and experience with friends. Until next year ladies!

Our dinner venue

The most amazing dipping sauce

Something akin to kangkong

BBQ beef. Looks plain was delish. Dip generously in the sauce above. Superb!

Mango salad with smoked fish

Mekong River fish. Probably the weakest of the dishes

Phenomenal chicken soup

Snails cambodian style

Free dessert

Our feast

One last drink!

Farewell Phnom Penh!

Chong Kneas Floating Village on Tonle Sap Lake

This morning we were able to sleep in and enjoy the excellent buffet breakfast at the hotel. Of note were the multiple variety of made to order noodle station, the banh mi station, and the crepe suzette station! We drove south towards Tonle Sap Lake, South East Asia's largest lake and part of the Mekong system, for a boat ride to visit one of the floating villages. We learnt a lot about life in a floating village, along with the fact that Mr Makara grew up in one! His family transitioned to land in 2005. He recounted how going to a supermarket was like heaven where you could pick any food you wanted and the air was so cool with air-conditioning. He was fortunate to be the youngest son, and thus his older siblings (6 of them) worked to send him to secondary school. He was then fortunate enough to win a scholarship for further studies and avoided conscription to be where he is today. His personal stories made the floating village come to life. Being low season, the waters were currently only 1-2m deep! However during the wet season, the lake could swell up to 12-14m. The village would then move closer to the mangroves for protection.

The breakfast buffet

This was the soup noodle station. There was also a dry noodle station

Lush rice paddies as we neared the waterway

The ramp down to the water is super steep as we are in dry season

Our little boat

The water is not very deep!

This village has a church

Sometimes different generations of the families tie their house boats together

Um...there's a crocodile farm on one of the boats

Not as big as Australian ones but still decent sized

The houses are reasonably spaced out!

Next up was a visit to Wat Damnak Pagoda for a private good luck blessing ceremony performed by the local monks. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect a fascinating Q&A session with 2 gentle and smiley monks! They took the time to ask about us and our time in Cambodia. They spoke English quite well and used our guide to translate long and in depth answers to our questions about their life and Buddhism. At the end of the ceremony, they tied a lucky red thread around our wrists dunked in holy water. The chat took quite a while and by this stage we were starving. It was lunch and then back to the hotel to escape the worst of the heat.

The 100 year old temple

Our guide talked us through what we had to do and then took photos for us lol

Good luck blessing ceremony

Today's drink of choice. Dragonfruit shake and mango shake

Lunch for today. Yummy as usual

At 3:30pm we were picked up for a short visit to Satcha Handicraft Centre. They aim to support the handicraft community by helping with further training in the craft themselves, training rural youths, as well as other skills such as English, marketing, and business to encourage the artisans to be able to support themselves with their skills. It was lovely to see but it was HOT. The concept shop sold the items made by the artisans. You could appreciate the more modern and western influences on the designs compared to others we had seen at other shops. Some of the pieces were elegant and beautiful but they were so so pricey...

Different types of crafts were on display in different huts

Weaving

Wood carving

Rattan

We had a sunset to catch and so continued on to our Cambodian cooking class. We drove to the traditional Khmer home of Ron and Sina in rural Krobei Riel village. Ron took us around his farm and told us about his family and his crops. They had an ingenuous method set up to use cow dung for gas and for manure. It was rather heartbreaking when he told us that he would only get paid USD 0.50 for a kilo of his salad leaves. Ron and Sina were friendly and gracious hosts. The cooking class was well set up with all of us having our own cooking stations. We prepared 3 traditional dishes, samlor koko soup, beef lok lak and mango salad. The ingredients were prepped for us and Ron helped those who were in remedial cooking while Sina demonstrated in front of us. Mr Makara did the translating as neither Ron nor Sina spoke English! Grandma was on the side, laughing at us. It was as authentic as you could get. We had so much fun and it was nice to know that we could produce such tasty food! We ate our meal enjoying the sunset over Mr Ron's crops very grateful that we had to privilege to experience this. We also all agreed that we didn't really fish mint...because it tasted like fish!