SE Asia

Did a 25km bike tour today. Our guide picked us up at 7:30 in a tuk tuk. The tour was great, Chris and I were the only ones on the tour, so we had a private guide for the whole trip. We went to Silk Island, but some other areas we went to also required a ferry crossing, we took 4 ferrys in total. You get a different perspective on a bike compared to touring in a van or car. We stopped at a rural market, still unbelievable on what they sell, but our guide was helpful in explaining some of the different foods, and we tried some things we never had before. He made a note that most people will come to a market twice a day, because they either don't have a refrigerator or the one they have is really small so they have no way of keeping large quantities fresh. Stopped at a tofu skin plant made from soybeans, the process is extremely hot, and the cooking pots must be within a certain temperature range, or the batch is ruined and becomes animal feed. The Master is responsible for ensuring the fire is right and also responsible for cutting and pulling the tofu skin off to hang when it is ready. There are about a dozen helpers who do the manual work, and they only get paid about $5 a day. The fires are a combination of wood and coal to get the right temperature. We tried some of the tofu skin, and it tasted like potato chips. It was interesting because they actually make the most money from the ashes afterward. The Chinese buy a lot of it for cosmetics and for incense base. We then stopped at a small family silk operation. It was really interesting to see the process from the larvae to feeding the worms a specific leaf in a certain size depending on the stage of their growth, then timing the cocoon to be boiled is crucial. You can get from 100 to 300m of silk Strand from one cocoon depending on its size. The work that is done to get the final product is time-consuming and requires so much concentration. It was nice to see the whole family doing a part. On the way back, one of the roads had fresh sand layered very thick, which was extremely hard to ride in. Thankfully, it wasn't very long. By the end of the tour, it was extremely hot outside, and we went for a couple cold beers and lunch. The first night here, our A/C failed so we didn't sleep very well, the hotel promptly installed a new A/C in the morning and comped us a free 90 minute massage and dinner so we did that today as well. We are all packed and ready for or 5 hour van ride to Siem Reap.Читать далее