Local Cambodian Market

Roluos Local Market

This is a typical local market, next to a fishing community, where Cambodians go once or twice a day to eat, buy or sell produce and other various things. While walking around Alain and I had to make a continual effort to not judge about the hygiene of things. We individually and silently came up to the realization that what we eat in restaurants most likely comes from markets similar to this one. Alain said that if someone ever needed a last push before becoming a vegetarian, a place such as this one would definitely help…ignorance is a bliss! 

And so, here we go… this lady was selling palm sugar syrup (in the white plastic buckets) with dead wasps and flies in it. You could see them floating in it and flying around really close to the surface; and sure enough once they touched the surface could not come out because it was too viscous. Chances are that I ate a few legs of flies or wasps with yesterday’s banana, coconut and sugar palm crêpes! But they were so good…how can this be? 

At this market people were selling many things such as fruits, vegetables, eggs, poultry, fish, rice plastics or clothing. You could also sit at one of the tables and eat what ever they were cooking and selling.

The basket to the right contains duck eggs, oh, and eggs in Cambodia taste weird, there is a difference between their chickens and ours.

In general from what I have seen, meat in markets are not kept in a cool place or on ice, they are there on a table at outside temperature of around 30C or more all day long...my inside voice kept saying "Camille do not judge, this is another culture, their way of living. Gosh I'm glad to be a vegetarian!"

We were told on several occasions that Cambodian people eat almost everything; and so the head of the fishes below are also eaten. I believe they cook them in some kind of soup.

The place was very busy, crowded and narrow; despite all of this, several people were “riding” their motorbikes or bicycles around; and the picture would not be complete if there were no dogs roaming around freely. 

This lady was making and selling waffles right there on the spot. She was a concrete round container to burn coal and bake the waffles in a metallic waffle mold (the black thing). The batter is in the pot next to the “waffle stove”. I must admit, Asian people are pretty ingenious at creating what they need with what they have.

Snack shells prepared with salt, pepper and hot peppers…I did not try them. 

These snakes are not poisonous; they are actually eaten by the locals. They were still alive when I took this picture. Only two were left when we stopped by, the rest had been sold earlier in the morning. They seem to be popular among Cambodians.

Ahhhh, a typical gas station for motorbikes! Very easy to set up and maintain; the “gas station” consist of recycled pop or liquor bottles filled with gasoline. When you stop with your motorbike for gasoline you purchase by the bottle! The neat part is that these “gas stations” are everywhere on remote roads making it easy to access petrol when you need some.

Angkor Thom

Siem Reap

The city of Siem Reap is the home of the famous Angkor Wat as well as many other ruin temples. Below are pictures of some of the beautiful ruins we saw on our first day here. There are so many ruins to visit that several days are required if you want to really look at all the magnificent structures and go back to explore more your favorite ones. We are planning on spending at least five days to visit the temples.

Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom is 3 km2 walled and moated royal city and was the last capital of the Angkorian empire. The city was constructed in the late 12th to early 13th century. After King Jayavaman VII recaptured the Angkorian capital from the Cham invaders in 1188, he began a massive building campaign across the empire, constructing Angkor Thom as his new capital city.

There are several structures within the walls of Angkor Thom. While visiting those structures, I took over 150 pictures. I tried my best to capture the beauty of these ruins, but it is quite difficult some times. Angkor Thom has four gates, each of them is crowned with four giant faces (like the picture below).

The series of statue below are found on each side of the road leading to the Angkor Thom gates.

Bayon

Of all the structures and ruins of Angkor Thom, the Bayon temple was my favorite.

The temple has 37 standing towers with many of them sporting four carved faces. Who the faces represent is a matter of debate but they may be Loksvara, Mahayana Buddhism’s compassionate Bodhisattva, or perhaps a combination of Buddha and Jayavar-man VII.

These are pictures of other beautiful structure and décor you can find at Angkor Thom.

Beautiful red dragonfly on floating plants.

Ta Prohm

This temple is very pretty because of its jungle overgrowth. Restoration work is underway but they intentionally left this complex partially unrestored with the massive fig and silk-cotton trees growing on the structures giving it a “jungle atmosphere”.

I couldn't take a picture of the full width of the temple as there were too many people in front of the main entrance. This is the left portion of the ruin.

Alain in front of one of those giant tree roots.

More on Phnom Penh

Killing Fields

Our visit to the Choeung Ek Memorial was educational but very disturbing at the same time. When Pol Pot took over Cambodia (1975-1979) he had a vision of a classless and agrarian society. In his mind, western culture, religion, foreign influences was to be extinguished to form an extreme peasant communism. During his regime, foreigners were expelled, embassies closed, foreign economic or medical assistance refused, use of foreign languages banned, TV and newspapers were shut down, even money was forbidden, education halted, and thus Cambodia was sealed off from the rest of the world.

The Khmer Rouge regime tortured and eliminated by mass slaughtering the old society which included the educated, the wealthy, Buddhist monks, police, doctors, lawyers, teacher, and former government officials. Cambodians who were accustomed to city life were forced to work in the fields while many died of overworking long hours, malnutrition and disease. Anyone who was suspected to be disloyal to Pol Pot was killed.

To eliminate all those who did not fit into Pol Pot’s “ideal” society ad hoc places of execution and dumping grounds for dead bodies were established and named “Killing Fields”. To date at least 300 killing fields have been found throughout Cambodia. It is estimated that over 17,000 people died at the Killing Field we visited near Phnom Penh while over two million Cambodians died during the Khmer Rouge regime. As a result of the Pol Pot years, Cambodia is now one of the poorest countries in the world.



Life in Phnom Penh
When walking around we saw in one part of the city a few people who had set up their own “barber shop” directly on the sidewalk. I asked Alain if he wanted to try the “Cambodian hair cutting or shaving experience”, he declined…I don’t understand why!

As mentioned previously, the motorbike is a very common and affordable mode of transportation in Cambodia. The two pictures below are examples of what we have seen out of the ordinary but not the most extravagant. Sometimes, I just don’t have my camera at hand to capture the ingenuity or craziness of what people come up with when it comes to motorbike usage.

The picture below is not an uncommon site in Phnom Penh where “restaurants” are set-up on the sidewalk and where Cambodians will eat. So far we have not ventured "in" one of those since we do not speak nor understand Cambodian and would not know where to begin to order food.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Phnom Penh

Alain and I will be in Cambodia and Laos over the next couple of weeks. Today was our first day in Phnom Penh. The temperature here is very hot and humid as August is also Cambodia’s rainy season.

My first observation of the little that I have seen so far of Phnom Penh is that poverty and luxury are right next to each other.

On the one hand you have some streets where people live in very poor housings, hanging around garbage, while at the next turn or so the area is well maintained and spacious with big hotels, nice restaurants, and buildings.

 

The Imperial Palace

Our visit at the Imperial Palace was very interesting though we were not allowed to take any picture inside the majority of the buildings (the cool ones at least). The Imperial Palace is composed of several buildings which most are in used every day by the current king (Norodom Sihamoni) and employees.

This is the building where the coronation of the Kings take place. We were not allowed to go in nor take pictures, just look inside. In there we could see the high chair where the King sits for his coronation.

A side view of the Coronation Hall.

The King of Cambodia is the head of the state of the Kingdom of Cambodia, however, his power is limited to that of a symbolic figurehead. The monarch represents peace, stability, and prosperity to the Cambodian people. The King is elected, making Cambodia one of the few elected monarchies of the world.

This building is now closed, but was used by the kings as a high platform (portion to the right) to get on their elephants. Elephants are almost extinct in Cambodia.

The following two images are two of the Stupas we can see on the Imperial Palace grounds. In this case they contain the ashes of the more recently deceased kings and their family members.

There are architectural similarities between the Cambodian and Thai Imperial Palace, but the Thai Imperial Palace is more colorful and spectacular while the Cambodian one more sober.

Beautiful lotus flowers at the Imperial Palace.

Everyday Life in Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh has busy streets and the motor bike is very the main choice of transportation for the Cambodians.

Here, I was trying to capture the busyness of the street with its street vendors. I need to figure out if my camera has a wide angle option; would definitely help in those situations.

This little boy noticed me when I was doing my tourist and taking pictures.