Jan 19 Siem Reap

I am had a day of rest today, no stair climbing.

I signed up for a cooking class, and at 10 I was at the restaurant. I was surprised, there were ten of us, quite a mixed group, a girl from Spain, a British couple, and seven women from Australia, who are in Siem Reap volunteering at local schools, for a month.

We started out by each choosing an appetizer and a main course from the menu, and then set out to the local market. CHAOS. Narrow aisles, tons of people, and everything you can think of for sale. Saw my first milk fruit, looks like an apple, and mini eggplants, the size of peas.

Our leader bought a few things, and we went back to the restaurant. By the time we got back each of us was given two plates, with the ingredients for our dishes. The next hour was spent chopping, and dicing, onions, lemongrass, ginger, tamarin, garlic, chilis, carrots, and a few other things.

I was amazed at the organizational ability of our chef. There were four or five different appetizers, and the same number of entrees. 

It was interesting to see the variety of dishes, banana leaf salad, different curries. For the curries they had to chop all the ingredients, and then use a huge mortar and pestle to make their paste.

I made spring rolls for my appetizer, and then chicken with basil for my main.

Lots of interesting ingredients, oyster sauce and coconut milk were in almost everything. The oil of choice here is Palm oil.

We finally sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labour. There was way too much food, I don't think anyone ate more than half of their meal.

I forgot the dessert, small bananas, fried in butter, flambed with some whiskey, and added passion fruit.

Everything was delicious, but a lot of work. A fun experience.

In the afternoon I visited the Angkor National Museum, a modern creation. I was amazed by all the religious information. I thought there was Hinduism and Bhuddism, but there are just as many sects as there are varieties of Christians. Angkor Wat was dedicated to the Hindu gad Vishnu, while Angkor Thom, a hundred years later, was dedicated to Bhudda. In Cambodia Bhuddism today has many aspects of Hinduism. The other interesting point is that there are no mentions of religious wars, both religions seem to be able to coexist. What a noble and novel idea.

The weather has been warm, high of 29, low of 15.

While I was in Bangkok I never really could identify a Thai "look". I didn't see any people that looked like the beautiful Thai women that you see in commercials.

Cambodia is different. The people all have similar features. Most of the women, whether they are teens or in their thirties look like 13 year olds, petit, very slim, and attractive. I have not seen ONE obese Cambodian. Obesity is the domain of the tourists.

They are also quite polite, and pleasant.

Tomorrow I am off to Laos.

Ralf

Scenes from the market. Wouldn't pass inspection at home, not at near 30 degrees.

This a piece of sandstone carving from Bayon. Fantastic detail. Sandstone was the material used almost conclusively. It is not as strong as some other stones, and erodes more easily

A statue depicting Vishnu. He has 4 arms, each one holding one of the four basic elements, water, fire, wind, and earth