MissAdventure

We stand in a dimly lit restaurant and gawk at the large, living, terrified tortoise on the table. She’s about the size of a dinner plate, and she’s pregnant. I gulp. In a few minutes, or however long it takes to turn tortoise into soup, we’re going to eat her.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

On our first day in Siem Reap, two friends and I hired a tour guide for Angkor, Cambodia’s original capital. Dom walks with a stagger – the result of childhood malnourishment – yet he’s confident and professional. Funny too. “Hear the parrots?” he asked. Then, jokingly, “They’re saying ‘Eat me! Eat me!’”

When our tour finished, we invited our guide to dinner. Now, we’re in his favorite restaurant where he's asked us to choose our living, breathing main ingredient before she’s slayed in a pot of boiling water.

“Sure, that one will do!” I answer for all of us. I swallow any uncertain thoughts in the name of cultural experience. I hope my friends will too.

Soon, our waiter places a steaming pot of soup at the table’s center. Dom removes the lid, releasing a scent like that of au jus. I peer inside. The entire tortoise, less the protective shell, is bobbing in a brown, watery broth in large, identifiable chunks. I cringe, and order another tower of beer.

I dip my spoon in, careful to avoid the solids, and sip the spicy broth. “It’s delicious!” I exclaim, reluctantly giving the nod to my friends. Can my innate curiosity outweigh my thoughts of remorse?

I scoop a yellow, nickel-sized egg into my mouth and it practically dissolves on my tongue it’s so succulent. Then I take a tiny bite of a chewy leg. Yum! I dip in for seconds when a memory of the mama tortoise, alive and quivering on the table, strikes and, simultaneously, the taste in my mouth goes sour.

I’m struck with the realization that I can only learn so much about a culture by reading about it. But when I see something first-hand – touch it, hear it, taste it – the words I read before dance off the page like the aroma wafting effortlessly from the bowl, and tease my curiosity with their intangibility before morphing into the memory of a profound reality.

Dom is on stage, belting a Khmer song into the microphone. He’s the epitome of a happy man in Cambodia, with a good drunk, a long day’s wage and a free meal. He grabs this moment with his whole heart, producing a melody that robs my attention from my musing.

I tune in to my friends’ conversation to hear, “Maybe tomorrow we'll try parrot.”