Deep fried tarantula in Cambodia
Today we had the drive from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap (which means ‘Siam Defeated’, in recognition of them stealing it from Thailand).
On the way we stopped at an ordinary looking truck stop where a lady sat out front selling from a bucket of deep fried spiders, crickets and other bugs. Having eaten crickets and silk worms last time I was in Thailand I was unable to resist, so started on a spider leg, whilst Terri went straight for the body. The leg was pretty tasteless, but on looking at the half eaten body it seemed to be full of eggs, and I suddenly felt rather satiated. Really didn’t want spider babies crawling out my mouth at night.
Later on we pulled over to walk across a special Naga Bridge, which depicted the churning of the ocean of milk, a recurring theme in Cambodian religious sites.
Arriving at Siem Reap we checked into our very decent hotel (the Angkor Holiday) and immediately set off up the mountain in the hope of getting there before the sunset over Angkor Wat. Running up the hill to get a good spot turned out to be rather fruitless as it looked like people had been waiting up there all day so we just stood in the middle and shared the palpable disappointment at the overcast conditions hiding the view.
Back in Siem Reap we headed to the old town and found the legendary Pub Street. The locals have sensibly forced all the noisy bars into a single street, thereby creating a good fun area for tourists and keeping the rest of the town peaceful and safe.
We got a seat right in the middle and met up with Sal and Georg, as we’d earlier planned in Hanoi. Given the area we were in we ignored the local food and went straight for cheese and bacon burgers all round. They were excellent and led to a very fun night.
Somewhat worse for wear we headed back to the hotel, molesting another Santa on the way. Given it was still extremely hot outside we decided on a midnight swim. Fortunately I had the presence of mine to remove my wallet and waterproof camera before jumping in. Phone in the other pocket, not so much.
