Village Food to Doggie Blues

Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Battambang, Battambang Province, Cambodia
Leaving Battambang behind we set off toward Banteay Chhmar, also referred to as Citadel of the Cat. On the way we stopped at a roadside stall and sampled some local grilled rat and some snake. The rats are caught in the fields so mainly eat grains. They had been glazed with a turmeric marinade and as a result were brightly coloured. The rat was actually quite tasty - very like chicken! The snake was not great. Mostly skin and bone, not much meatiness at all as they were only little. I would eat the rat again but the snake no thanks. We also stopped at a stall that had sweet sticky rice with red bean and coconut that was cooked in bamboo. A nice sweet little snack. Lunch was in a non descript travelers diner but the food was freshly cooked and not in bain-marie's (Michael's pet hate). Mike really enjoyed his green curry and now is determined to add Thai basil to his recipe. I think it is his current flavour of the month. My Lok Lak beef was petty tough so I left most of it.
We had a look through a small silk factory where women are given the opportunity to work . The traditional methods are complex and labour intensive. No wonder hand made scarves are quite expensive.
We arrived at the town of Banteay Chhmar and were dropped off at our home stay - a typical stilted Khmer house. Our host was Sam who showed us our room and we didn't see her again. Her husband is a teacher and was still at work. There are two sessions of school per day 7.00am to 11.00am and 1.00pm to 5.00pm. Kids attend either in the morning or afternoon. Schooling is technically compulsory but is not enforced. Schooling is free but education isn't. Everything costs. A teachers salary is not enough to live on so they charge a dollar here, a dollar there for extra classes and materials and other things. We went to see the ruins of the temple - Mr Sy was our guide. I couldn't take my eyes off him, he was so expressive. Definite signs of mania there! Passionate, enthusiastic and hilarious - he was practically doing charades to explain the history and engravings. The ruins themselves were fabulous but most stones have collapsed, still fascinating . Around the ruins we came across a few groups of teenagers who were hanging out having a few beers. This is pretty recent behaviour as a couple of years ago boys and girls would not have mixed in this way.
At our home stay our rooms were upstairs, very Spartan - we had a bed, a mosquito net and a fan. This house is part of Community Based Tourism or CBT. This means that the whole community benefits from the tourists and families take turns in housing guests. There is also a community hub where food is cooked. We started off on a little walk but Brett thing the skies opened so we took shelter in a small shop. It was big, big rain, like someone opened the tap full pelt but was over pretty quickly, however it made everything super sloshy. We went for dinner to the community hub where we had dinner consisting of a fish soup, pickled cabbage and pork stir fry, rice and fresh bananas.
We all ended up with muddy shoeshine of course we had to take them off.
After dinner we walked back to our house, sloshing through the muddy streets . My shoes were pretty messed up so I took them off. Bec and Ryan, Mike and I sat around yakking for a bit then headed upstairs to bed. It gets dark and there is no tv and limited electricity so you go to bed. Not long after going to bed we could hear the evening sounds of the village, dogs barking, a baby crying and some other creature noises. The mattress was like a plank, and the fan couldn't quite cut it through the mosquito net. It wasn't the most comfortable night. A few times we heard dogs barking and fighting. It was so loud I was too scared to open the door because they sounded like they'd come upstairs! Little did we know that the dogs were fighting over a grand prize - one of my shoes! In the morning when I got up to go to the loo I headed down stairs and noticed my shoes on the first landing. Not where I had left them. Not quite in the same condition that I left them in. They were neatly side by side by one was mangled and muddy, the whole insole had been chewed out and the inside shredded. Mr Niang appeared from somewhere where he had been hovering nearby. He was mortified and quite distressed. I reassured him that it was just a shoe and not to worry. I took my reclaimed shoes (realising someone had to wrestle it from the maw of the beasts that were fighting over it). The home stay was really interesting but unfortunately we just didn't have the opportunities to interact with our hosts. We had a walk through the village and saw it coming to life for the day before having breakfast at the community hub.

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