This visit to Cambodia was very different to the last. This time I was on an Intrepid Real Food tour, and I got to visit a bunch of different places around the country.
Our first night in Phnom Penh was spent meeting the group and then heading out to a waterfront restaurant to start tasting delicious Cambodian food – curry, meat & veg and rice, with a backdrop of the river and a traditional dance being performed in the restaurant.
The next day started visiting the Genocide museum S21 and the Killing Fields (I opted out of both of these since I’d visited on my last trip) and driving down to Kampot.
We took a river cruise along the Kampot river, despite impending rain, had dinner and then walked back through the town after the rains paused.
The next morning started with a breakfast at Epic Arts Cafe, before heading out to explore the La Plantation pepper farm. They grow both normal pepper and long pepper here, as well as various other spices to mix with the ever-present pepper that we meet all over Cambodia! We even got to eat pepper flavoured icecreams – delicious.
The next stop for the day was the seafood markets at Kep beach, filling our bellies with amazing seafood tom yum and crab in curry sauce. So good!
We headed back to Phnom Penh for a cooking class where we made the most amazing green curry sauce with probably 5 times as much lemongrass as any of us tend to use in cooking.
The next morning was a long drive to Battambang, stopping briefly on the way for a quick pottery demonstration (of course I jumped in and had a go – you don’t have to ask me twice!)
On arriving in Battambang at the aptly named Classy Hotel, we diverted ourselves with swimming, massages and a street food walk, tasting such delicacies as stuffed frog, sticky rice with custard, and bbq meat. We also checked out some street art and a pagoda before heading out for a home cooked meal of Cambodian bbq, cooked on the table on little shared bbqs.
The next day started with a bicycle tour of Battambang’s cottage industries, starting with a family who handmade rice paper sheets, then heading to a family who made banana treats – airdried banana strips, or fried banana chips. Yum!
The next stop was at a rice “wine” distillery, where many jokes were made about the snake-infused wine, and then onto sticky rice cooked in bamboo chunks, which was again, delicious. We headed back to the hotel (I’d abandoned my bike for the support tuk-tuk quite early in the piece) and headed to Siem Reap, our last stop.
Siem Reap struck us as quite the party town, possibly because we arrived on NYE, and we had a street food dinner scheduled before we visited Sombai for a cocktail making class.
Thusly lubricated, a few of us decided we would head to Pub Street for a New Year’s drink. It was absolutely packed – wall to wall with people who had the same idea.
We headed upstairs to a restaurant/bar overlooking the street, where many others had also retreated, so we didn’t manage to snag a balcony table, but at least we had somewhere to sit.
At about 10pm most of us headed back to the hotel, knowing we had a 4am wakeup to go see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. We should have just stayed out though – the town was absolutely heaving and the hotel wasn’t very soundproofed from the fireworks going off on the other side of the building at midnight!
We were a weary bunch who made it to the bus at 4.45am. We joined the stream of people all heading the same direction and took up position on the steps leading to the moat around Angkor Wat, facing East.
The sunrise was lovely over the towers, but the cloud cover meant there weren’t as many colours as sometimes happen, so at 6am we headed to the coffee shop for some sustenance, then wandered back out to explore the Wat.
It was big and impressive and awe-inspiring — definitely a must-see.
Conscious of our fading energy, we didn’t go straight to the next temple, but stopped for a tutorial on making fresh rice noodles, and then ate the very same noodles for breakfast, accompanied by a very mild curry sauce and vegies/herbs including the very pretty water hyacinth. We all agreed this was the best meal we’d had on the whole trip, but I’m not sure if it was because we were the hungriest we’d been the whole time!
We then hit the road to check out our next temple: the Tomb Raider temple. This place has fallen apart and the gorgeous bare-rooted trees have started taking over, creating some beautiful and eerie vistas. Another definite must-see!
The third temple was the one with many, many Buddha faces, and it was interesting, but it wasn’t only me who was pretty tired by this point, and ready to head back to the hotel for a little lie-down. Our fabulous driver, Mr Vee, kept meeting us at the bus with a tray of icy cold damp towels scented with lemongrass, which was an absolute lifesaver, but even those couldn’t keep our heads held high at that point.
After a quick refresh, me and one of the other tourers jumped into a tuktuk to visit the Fair Trade Village and Made in Cambodian which supports various artisans, to have a look at the handicrafts, before walking back to the hotel.
Our final night on the tour was celebrated at a teaching restaurant where we ate some more yummy curry and spring rolls, and then it was time to wave a final goodbye to the group.
My next stop was back to Hoi A briefly to shop and relax before heading home. I flew with Cambodia Angkor Airlines from the new and very impressive Siem Reap airport which was about an hour out of town. The plane was almost empty but weirdly the checkin agent seated me right next to two other people, so we had a cramped but short flight.
On arrival in Hoi An, I went straight to visit our old friends at Bebe 2 tailors, bringing some fabric with me to have made into work shirts. As usual I added to my work wardrobe with a few pairs of pants.
I stayed in a different hotel again – this time at Little Town Villa, near Hoi A Central hotel that we’d stayed at last time, but a little further down the street. The hotel was very welcoming and friendly, and the hotel and my room was gorgeous, but being the end of the wet season and being near the river, everything smelled a little damp. Luckily they had an air purifier, which combined with the air conditioner, helped a lot. The owner of the hotel was really lovely and even took me out for pho breakfast on my last day there.
Unfortunately I picked up a cold as I was leaving Cambodia – probably on NYE when we were threading through those solid crowds! I spent a lot of time sleeping and didn’t do much except for visiting the tailor and tramping around to chemists seeking cold medications (without much luck – I did get some antibiotics but wasn’t able to find much in the way of decongestants etc).
I did try out the tailor attached to my hotel, and asked them to copy a top I’d brought with me. The results were pretty good and a reasonable price, but not the polish (or price, to be fair!) of the high end tailors. I would definitely go back for casual clothes, but I’ll bring my own fabric next time.
My only other ‘activity’ was a chocolate making workshop at Alluvia Chocolate. We tempered chocolate and then made bars, truffles and other delights. Definitely worth it, not only because you get to wear a fabulous cap during the workshop! And the choccies lasted almost all the way home…
Two Weeks Away 