Siem Reap (November 2019)

We woke up at 5:00 on Monday morning and went to the airport to fly to Siem Reap, Cambodia. As I mentioned in my Angkor Wat post, we made the trip to Siem Reap mainly to see the Angkor complex. However, there were many other things to see, including the water festival, apsara dancing and a nearby floating village. We also enjoyed relaxing at our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott.

When we arrived, we ate lunch at Lok Lak (one of the hotel restaurants) and chose the pool side seating. Elise and I both got huge coconuts and got to drink everything inside. We ordered fish amok and beef lok lak, which is the restaurant’s namesake. Fish amok is a traditional khmer dish and is similar to fish curry stew. Beef lok lak is marinated grilled beef with vegetables (usually tomatoes and lettuce) and is the Cambodian version of Vietnamese Bo Luc Lac.

After lunch, we went took a tuk tuk to the water festival celebrations.

The water festival celebrates the reversal of the flow of water in both the Mekong river and the Tonle Sap lake. The reversal is important because it signifies the beginning of the fishing season. The water festival lasts three days and has lots of dragon boat races. The day we went was the second day of the celebration. It was lots of fun to watch the races.

Apart from dragon boat races, you can also enjoy many different street foods. There were many street vendors selling food and drink both savory and sweet.

Some food was even too strange for me, eater of intestines and sea cucumbers, including grasshoppers, worms and rats with wings (bats). They also sold balut eggs, which are hard-boiled duck eggs with a baby duck inside. I read that when you cook them, they don’t solidify but turn into a brothy liquid. I also read that the more the baby duck looks like a duck the more manly you’re supposed be after you eat it. If you want to see a photo of it contact me or Mom and have a plastic bag with you when you view it. If you passed the first test of manliness, then you must try the ultimate challenge – to eat a … TARANTULA! A tarantula is another Cambodian delicacy. After all the festivities, we went back to the hotel and had dinner.

The next day, we went to Angkor Wat (see Angkor Wat post). After we finished, we went to the Apsara Theatre to watch the ancient art of Apsara dancing. If you haven’t read my Angkor Wat post, Apsaras are cloud spirits and are entertainers for the gods. The Apsaras acted out stories. Every movement has a meaning in Apsara dancing (e.g a finger pointing to the sky means today). During the reign of Jayavarman VII, there were over 3000 dancers at court. Their skill was so prized that, when the Thais sacked Cambodia in the 15th century, they took a troupe home. Apsara dance almost did not survive the ravages of the Khmer Rouge (the Cambodian communist party that ruled in the 1970s). Luckily for us, it was revived in 1995, 16 years after the fall of Khmer Rouge.

The theatre had nice food, and we all enjoyed the dancing.

The next day, we had a cooking class at our hotel. We met up with the chef in the lobby and went to a wet market.

Everyone in our family thought it was disgusting. It was hot and muddy, the produce was on the floor and there were flies EVERYWHERE! I’ve been to the Hong Kong wet markets, but this one is a lot dirtier and more primitive.

After we looked around the wet market, we went back to the hotel to start cooking. Thankfully, we weren’t using ingredients from the wet market.

First, we made Cambodian style donuts. We began by pouring some oil into our pans so it could heat up. Next, we rolled the dough into a thick noodle shape and put the ends together to make a ring. Finally, we put the donuts in the pan of sizzling hot oil. When one side was done, we would flip them with the spatula. When the donuts were cooling, we made the caramel. First, we poured water into a pot. When the water started to boil, we added the sugar. After it cooled down, we dipped the donuts in the caramel and a blend of sesame seeds and sugar.

After we made the donuts, we started to make fish amok, starting with the sauce. To make the sauce, we added oil, crushed finger root (like ginger), palm sugar, fish sauce, coconut cream and chicken stock into the pan. Next, we poured the sauce into a pan with some mushrooms. While it was simmering, we cut the fish into thin slices. After we were done, we dumped the fish into a different pan with just water in it and left it to simmer too, careful not to touch it with our bare hands. After it was cooked, we put the fish into the sauce pan. When it was getting close to being finished, we added shaved coconut and shaved parsley. When it was ready, we poured the whole thing into a bowl.

After we finished making the fish amok, we started to make the green mango salad. To make the sauce, we soaked dried shrimp in water and then added the dried shrimp, palm sugar, chicken powder, fish sauce, tomato paste, crushed garlic, white vinegar and chili into a bowl. Finally, we added the salt for seasoning. After we finished making the sauce, we started to make the salad. First, we put grated green mango, grated cucumber, grated carrots, saw leaf, sweet basil, sliced green bell pepper and sliced red bell pepper in a bowl. Next, we tossed the salad and put it on a plate. After that, we added smoked fish and shrimp on top. Finally, to plate it, we sprinkled salt and peanut powder on top, and we squeezed a lime all over it.

After we finished cooking, we settled down and ate a yummy meal consisting of green mango salad, fish amok and Cambodian donuts. We all had fun making everything. The funniest part was that Elise and I made around 13 donuts each and tried to stuff them all in our mouth when Mom and Dad were looking the other way.

After the cooking lesson, we went to one of Cambodia’s many floating villages, Kampong Phluk. On the way there, we saw how the people who live outside the city live. All of them are very poor and fish for a living. It’s very sad that some people have to live this way.

Kampong Phluk has many colorful houses and market boats. The houses are built on stilts or are floating. The town has everything a city needs, including schools and churches. The people in the town make a living by fishing and catching seafood. Many times the fishing falls to the young boys, and we saw several boys younger than me manning their own boats.

In the middle of our voyage, our driver stopped at a restaurant to try and get us to buy some food and also tried to get us to take a tour on another boat of a mangrove forest next to the restaurant. We declined both offers, wanting to get on with our tour.

The end of the river that houses the floating village flows into the Tonle Sap lake, the largest fresh-water lake in Southeast Asia. Our driver took us out onto the lake once we reached the end of the river and cut the engines. After we admired the lake’s scenic views for a little while, we started to wonder why our driver wasn’t taking us back. Next thing we knew, a lady on another boat tried to board our boat, and I thought “pirate!” It turned out that she was just trying to sell us a bunch of snacks and drinks. When we didn’t buy anything, our driver promptly restarted the engines and left the lake.

After we got back to the hotel and showered, a tuk-tuk came to pick us up and it was the same driver that we had the night before! He took us to a french restaurant. Like Vietnam, Cambodia was taken over by the French during the late 1800s, and it remained a French colony until 1953. As a result, there is still a lot of French influence in Cambodia, and we were looking forward to sampling the French food. The restaurant we went to was small but very nice, and the owner was the chef. We enjoyed many types of seafood including sea bass, shrimp and my favorite, scallops. The chef offered to make beef bourguignon for Elise and me to share, and we happily agreed. We also enjoyed chocolate mousse and apple tart for dessert.

The next day we had the breakfast buffet at the hotel and went to the pool. We spent the whole morning there, and we all had lots of fun. It was really nice that we had the whole pool to ourselves.

After the pool, Elise and I went to the kids club while Mom and Dad got a massage. So unfair right? After they picked us up, we went to Cuisine Wat Damnak. It’s famous for its combination of French and Cambodian cuisines. It was the first restaurant from Cambodia to get on the top fifty restaurants in Asia list. There are two tasting menus that are offered daily, and we tried both of them. My favorites were the grouper and the pan-fried beef toungue. What was really funny was that while we were waiting for the food, Elise took at least a hundred selfies all over the restaurant.

At the end of the meal, the chef surprised us with a plate of local fruits served with chili lime salt and a spoon full of shrimp paste (ugh!). One of the fruits was extremely sour as you can see below.

This delicious meal was a great way to end our Cambodian trip, as we were flying out the next morning. We had lots of fun on our Cambodia trip, and I think that if you have the chance to go, you will enjoy it too.