Mika on Tour

"There are no tourists in the old market", Chamron tells me and spits a stream of reddish brown tobacco onto the side of the road, "None of these it-tasted-like-chicken-people!" He had stopped his old moto when I have told him my next destination and refuses to take me without discussing it. I insist, stating that I'm not a tourist, but a traveler; and as annoyed with those people lacking the creativity to describe the mouthwatering taste of uncommon meat. His smug smile tells me he doesn't believe me at all, and that for him all foreigners are the same; but he agrees to take me anyways.

When we arrive I at first circle the market. Here in Cambodia, markets are their own little ecosystems. I like being at the edge for some time before I enter; anticipating the coming adventure, the exhilarating smells, the strange food, the hectic life inside the boundaries of the outside stalls.

Then I enter.

The market swallows me at once, as the twilight of yet another power outage engulfes me. The dream begins. Letting the stream of people, who push against me on the cramped walkways, carry me without any specific destination, I breath in deeply as we pass the food court. Foreign spices, boiling brown meat soup in deep pots, fried rat and monkeys with their heads split open make up an intoxicating aroma. I ask what kind of meat is in the pots. Chicken? Beef? Pork? People smile at me and shake their heads. No. Other meat.

The next second it smells like all kind of human waste products, and the brownish goo on the floor gets thicker. I take a turn and look upon rows and rows of pitch-black, luscious hair, neatly cut and hanging in thick strands from the ceiling, waiting for the next girl who wants extensions for Khmer New Year. The next turn brings hundreds of hens, still alive, but apathetic from the heat. A little boy forces water down their beaks. Another turn: bloody meat on hooks and big, heavy fish trying to escape on the muddy floor. Then, a beauty salon with people lying in rows after rows, with creams on their faces and their hands in lemon water. After that: little stalIs covered in plastic bags full of fried cockroaches and waterbugs, crickets and ants. When I am overwhelmed by the experience I pass the women selling fruit - jackfruit, mangosteen, bananas - and go back to the food court.

While leaving the market I'm eating a bowl full of other-meat.
It tastes like chicken.