More Temples and Cooking

Today was not as early of a start, but we were still set to go by 8 am. Back on the bus, we were off to our first temple spot of the day. Prerup temple is significant because it is very old and combines two styles of architecture. Many of us chose to climb to the top, but all of a sudden, a swarm of bees appeared! We made our way down the steps pretty quickly and avoided any trouble with the bees.

The next temple was a temple in the middle of an intentionally flooded plain. We had to walk across a long bridge to get to it and on the way found red ant (bullet ants) colony in the trees. Our guide stopped and ate some, telling us they were a good snack!

The final temple of the day was set back quite far from the road, so we had to hike in to get there. Again, the high structures were impressive and the vast number of stone carvings was pretty mind blowing. I’ve also learned a lot about Hinduism and Buddhism along the way, although trying to remember the names of reigning kings has been impossible.

We were all “templed out” by this point as the humidity had been quite high. We decided yo go for a group lunch, but so many people want to eat Western food while we are here (this, I don’t get). Luckily, Tong found a place that served both Khmer and Western food. I had a jungle juice (made with a variety of fruits and ginseng) and a red curry while Brad had a few Cambodian beers and a green curry. The portions were huge and we were quite full by the time were done.

Brad and I decided to go to a local handicraft market and buy a few things before going back to our hotel to cool off.

At 4, we were picked up by our cooking class instructor. He took us, by tuk tuk, to his local village where we shopped at the outdoor market for the ingredients. We have been to see many of these markets, but this one was quite rural and we were absolutely the only white people there. Our instructor showed us a variety of different produce and then he bought us two huge grasshoppers to try, which we ate! They were more crunchy than anything and not half bad! We also bought fresh chicken and fish, which he explained would be washed in salt water once we got to his house in order to kill the bacteria because as you know, nothing is refrigerated here.

We drove to his house where we would be cooking and got to meet his wife and son. We were greeted with fresh coconuts to drink and some guava that we bought at the market. While his wife cleaned our ingredients, he and his eight year old son took us on a walking tour of their village. Along the way, he showed us all the plants that grow naturally around town and explained how they were used in cooking. We even got to smell and taste fresh cumin leaves, tamarind leaves, and lemongrass. Then, we walked through a little house where they were washing off their water buffalo for the evening as the buffalo basically sleep right next to their house.

Back at the house, we got our aprons and chef hats on and got ready to make a green mango salad, create our own green curry paste from scratch, prepare mini bananas for a dessert, and then cook everything! To start, we had green mango salad with chicken, followed by amok fish which is a very traditional dish that is like a green curry with fish and noni leaves. We finished with a banana dessert made with palm sugar and pandan leaves. There was so much food that we were bursting at the seams! The experience took about four hours, but it was such a unique and eye opening cooking class! Highly recommended should you visit Siem Reap!

Our tuk tuk driver (the instructor’s neighbour!) took us back to our hotel in the pouring rain. This is the type of weather I thought we’d get a lot of considering it’s rainy season, but we have been so lucky with it only raining in the evenings. Apparently, there is a tour that is one day behind us and they ran into a typhoon in Vietnam and couldn’t go to Halong Bay because they closed it. They had also closed the Hanoi airport during the typhoon! Anyway, we have been blessed with incredible weather!

Tired, full, and needing to get packed, we called it an early night (as opposed to meeting our group on Pub Street). Tomorrow we leave Cambodia and go to our last stop, Bangkok! I will really miss having our guide, our bus, and our group mates as it has made traveling in these very different countries so much easier and such a delight!Read more