Cooking class, temples and bat cave

The second day was also a true highlight!

We had to get up early to be at our Khmer cooking class at 09:00. We were 6 people altogether and used the facilities of Coconut LyLy’s restaurant to prepare 4 dishes until 12:00 o’clock:
- green mango salad
- taro-carrot spring rolls
- traditional “amok” dish with mushrooms
- coconut-lime dessert

The best thing about Khmer cuisine are the flavors: it’s not too spiced but rather emphasizes the abundant flavors of different herbs (e.g., lemongrass, coriander), roots (e.g., kurkuma, ginger), and spices (e.g., kampot pepper, chili). Also great for me, Anna, is that a lot of dishes are vegetarian/vegan :-) and if not: most can be modified and as portions are often cooked separately, one can even vary the ingredients person by person.

We first went to the local market to by a couple of fresh ingredients. It was great to see the different colors of fruit and vegetables as well as the “coconut milk cow” in action: it’s a device which produces coconut milk out of freshly ground coconut flesh 🥥

Cooking was fun and quite easy - also due to our great instructor Lim Ly whose wife came home during the session with their 1-day-old son :-) - but most importantly: we loved the results :-) my favorite: the taro-carrot spring rolls with a pepper-sugar spice mix, Bertram’s one was mushroom “amok” which is made with ground lemongrass and lime leaves as well as coconut.

Afterwards, we left for an art exhibition which was unfortunately closed. So, we had a massage instead. The specialty: the massage was performed by blind people and, thus, helps them to make a living - great concept.

In the late afternoon, we went for another tour in a tuk tuk: South of Battambang is a temple on a mountain whose caves are also full of bats 🦇 Before we waited for them to come out at dusk, we climbed the mountain for the temple and the view of the plains. Bertram also successfully added another animal selfie - monkey - to his collection. We briefly saw another horrific place of the Khmer Rouge regime: a killing cave into which hundreds of still unidentifiable die persons had been thrown after having been killed.

The bats were quite an event: 20 minutes of bats flying out of the caves by the hundreds while screeching bat sounds :-) - see the attached video!

Tomorrow, we will be in Siem Reap to get ready for Wat Angkor.Read more