Last night we had a surprise for dinner - we were invited into the home of a local Cambodian family, a tour guide friend of our tour leader. His wife cooked the most amazing array of loyal dishes, some of which we had not yet tried in previous dinners, this was a rare treat to experience life inside a Cambodian home. the local houses here (other than city western style houses) are all built of wood, bamboo, and are on high stilts, to avoid the floods during the rainy season. We met mr Thoms family, they have 4 boys from 3 to 16 Whom we met, the littlest one showed off around us, just too cute. Being a school night and given we were in their family home (and living/sleeping quarters) it was not a late night at all, but a very special experience nonetheless. I had booked a massage for after dinner. The lady came to my room and she was amazing doing things with her elbows, legs an even feet!!, $6 for an hour, back in oz it would be 80-130 for the same thing.
Today we set off early on the big bus about 2.5 hours before we got on our bikes. How the tour works is you need to get from A to B and to get to towns or cities with accomodation for us,we sometimes need to bus It a few km and ride the rest, or ride, then bus the rest. Today we did 43.8 km in total, but only started riding just before lunch. On the morning bus ride we stopped off for a loo break at one of the local towns Stone I think it was,a more mountainous area, famous for its TARANTULAS!!!!!!! Yes!!!! Some didn't want to go to the loo there!!! We explored the food market briefly and were fascinated by the array of local delicacies to eat, embryo eggs, crispy tarantulas (some ate these said it tasted like prawns), huge bowls of crispy cockroaches, crickets, etc. a legacy from the Khmer Rouge days where people ate anything that moved in desperation! but these are now a delicacy. We had a fear factor session, and I held a live tarantula (fangs removed!!!) and I even ate crispy crickets (they tasted like nutty chips, not for me, but some love them!!!!) . After that excitement we stopped off near a beautiful hillside set of temples from various centuries, and climbed 630 or so steps (and down) as a pre bike warm up and to see the vistas from the top. We then hopped on our bikes and rode half way, stopped for lunch near a village temple. Sometimes our support vehicle provides lunch for us, they always provide snacks, cold cloths, and water for us at our various stops. Today our local guide had organised lunch for us prepared by a local village, they prepared rice, chicken, bean like veggies, and deliicious onion omelets. The chickens here are very skinny, with long necks and legs compared to large fat oz chooks!! A very old lady came up to us, from that village, very curious and probably very hungry, we invited her to have the rest of the food, she eagerly took lots of chicken pieces in a bag, which she said she'd share with her grand daughters. She's was very sweet, no English at all, but chatting enthusiastically to us, wishing us a long life. At 83 years old she must have some stories to tell, having lived through all the regimes, French, Vietnamese, american, Khmer Rouge, etc. Definitely not an easy life to have survived it all, that's for sure.
we cycled the next half towards the capital city Phnom Phen, and a few km outside the city, we jumped in the bus, hot, dusty and worn out esp as we had cycled in the hottest part of the day. Those last few km into the city would be quite hectic on the very busy city roads, so best avoided by bike our guide thought. as we entered the big and bustling city, we had to agree!!!! Late afternoon we had some free time, so a few went off for massages, some of us found the central markets and shopped ( just like singapore and Bangkok markets), we met at the infamous Foreign Corresponence club for cocktails (2 for $5 in happy hour) with stunning views over the river, a real buzzing area, with lots of foreigners all soaking up Cambodian City life. we went to a beautiful river side restaurant, titanic! walked back to our hotel, tired and well fed(as usual), some of us snuck in a quick half hour foot massage not the way back. Some of these places are open till 2am. very sad to see LOTS of street kids all just sleeping on mats on the pavement, tugging at your clothes. this place is known for pickpocketing so we had to be vigilant here.
All in all another really interesting day, filled with lots more than envisaged, and one tries hard to remember all the little things we've seen and done each day!!
