2-16-07
Monkeys!
Food!
More Monkeys!
More food!

After two days of sight seeing with the Royal Cambodian palace, the S-21 genocide museum and the Killing Fields I decided to have a wandering day, a day where I don't follow any map and just start walking. My sense of direction has gotten better over the months so I can normally find my way back and there are always tuk tuk or motorbike drivers ready to take you anywhere you want or sell you pot. Anyway, the killing fields were cool if graphic, S-21 is even more graphic but neither of which were very fun, nor did they have monkeys.

Today . . . there were monkeys.
Lots and lots of monkeys.

This morning I started walking around braving wild drivers and wilder cross walks and eventually found Wat Phnom, a large Wat in the middle of Phenom Penh that has lots and lots of monkeys. And these monkeys aren't in cages or anything, there are no people looking out for them, they just exist in the middle of the city. Sweet. I went to the top of the Wat and started to weave a new coconut bracelet/anklet from the coconut I still have in my bag from Ko Tao when a Japanese tourist started feeding some monkeys. I thought cool, these monkeys seem pretty used to people so I reached out and touched one on the back, big mistake! He got all up in my face, bared his teeth (sign of aggresion) and then jumped up on the bench I was sitting on (another sign of aggression). I remembered my friend Ben saying that monkeys are 8 times more powerful than people pound for pound and I thought of the horrible headline that may appear in the paper the next day "RPCV horribly disfigured by monkey in Buddhist temple" Luckily he went away and I got to keep my nose and eyes.

So I went on my way and eventualy found a small side restaurant with no AC or fan and no one really spoke English, my kind of place. Through a series of hand motions and signals I got some tea which was served hot in the pot but I was also given a glass full of ice . . . curious. Normaly my tea arrives hot and stays hot. Like some kind of village idiot I sat there looking at it, wondering if I was really supposed to pour the hot tea into the cold glass full of ice. Eventually it became obvious that that's exactly what I was supposed to do. So with the entire serving staff watching me I poured myself the strangest iced tea I'd ever had. And it was good! Surprisingly good, the best tea I've had so far. I think it was Jasmine. Traveling as farang normally I get crappy "yellow label" black lipton tea when all I want is some real tea. But whatever, it was good and I was able to drink all that I wanted to for 500 riel (even though tea is free if you order food). After getting my tea craving taken care of I hit the local market and after navigating streets smaller than in Thailand I sat down for some real street food, something I hadn't been able to get for the past week or so. I take back any bad things I've said about the food here in Cambodia, this soup was very good, full of noodles and fish and there were all kinds of things to put in, including a chili paste and some fermented beans that tasted suspiciously like natto but without the slime (the beans are on the right side of the photo); total cost: 2500 riel ($.62).

Encouraged that I had found some decent food I went and bought a kilo of rambutin because they're that good. Please God, tell me I can get rambutin back in the States, they are like crack cocaine. Seriously, if I had a choice between a kilo of hard rock and a kilo of rambutin there would be a very displeased drug dealer after I left. I'm basically the cookie monster of these things. Today I learned that there is a difference in rambutins, one kind costs 4000 riel a kilo ($1) and the other kind costs 5000 riel a kilo ($1.25), but I was able to get the 5000 riel ones for 4000 riel, ha! Behold my sick bargaining skills as I talk a woman down $.25 on a purchase! Pwn3d! I took my fruit and sat down by the river, sharing some with a couple local boys who were pulling wagons of green coconuts to sell. Btw, I realize that most of the time I'm getting a little ripped off like paying 500 riel for the tea, and if my name was Adam Kane I'd probably be able to get it for half that much, I'm just not that big a fan of bargaining. I mean I'll do it sure but getting all into it, making a show of leaving, it's not for me. If I'm leaving I'm really leaving, not waiting for them to call me back. I'll just walk down the street and find it for a cheaper price whatever I'm looking at.


Not completely filled by the rambutins I started walking down some side streets, eager to find the next thing to munch on. I'd read about some fermented fish paste called Pahok that's served on rice but hadn't been able to find any. But I did happen to see a woman who was making sugar cane juice, something I've only seen in Cambodia. It's pure genius, you squeeze all the water out of sugar cane with a heavy duty press and mix with some orange juice and serve over ice. Awe, mama blong Jesus, it was good! Even bett juice I'd had in Indonesia years agoer than the mango and I had stacked that as the top juice ever. But this, this was cold, crisp, sweet and a little sour, throw in a little savory and you have a Thai smoothie. Sure it looks like fermented horse urine but it tastes so much better! And the ice was chipped, not cubed. What is it about chipped ice that makes drinks taste so much better? I drank the cane juice in about 4 seconds and considered buying more, but I knew I couldn't over do it, there would be more later I was sure. It would also probably serve as the perfect mixer, so as soon as I find a sugar cane supplier back in the States . . .

On my way back to the Wat I passed a large group of men who were in the process of making some kind of fried dumpling. I'd seen them earlier in the day making the dough, rolling it out and making the filling and now they were frying them. I talked to one of the fryers and accepted when he offered me one. They were "pots of gold" that I'd had at some Chinese restaurant back in the States but never like this. I mean these were fresh out of the fryer and still steaming when I bit into them. I bought a kilo for 15,000 riel ($3.75). Back in the States I would probably get 4 for what, $2.50? But I was getting a whole kilo! I felt a elated, hungry, and a little guilty I was getting such a great deal. But Chinese New Year was the next day and he said they would be all sold out by 9 am the following day. These things are great beer food, and as I write I still have half a kilo left in my bag, these things aren't leaving my sight they're that good.


After the pots of gold I went and bought another kilo of rambutin. Hey I don't have a problem, I can stop any time I want! And went to go back and feed the monkeys. Unfortunately I forgot how smart monkeys are and after giving one rambutin to the first monkey he reached up and grabbed the plastic bag that was holding the rest of them. Luckily I was able to get it back but then I thought "Aw screw it, they're monkeys!" and gave them out to all the other ones that were close. Apparently monkeys love the rambutin as much as I do, fighting over them and eating them like the delicious pieces of heaven they are. I kept my fried dumplings safely out of sight, there was NO way I was letting them go. I watched the monkeys play and fight and pick lice out of each other's orifices and then went back to the guest house to crash for a little while and ponder what I'd accomplished during the day.

As it is right now I've spent a little over $6 today on food which means that with my $3 a night room I haven't even broken the $10 mark yet. And I probably won't get much to eat tonight as I still have a pound of pots of gold in my bag. Of course I'll have to eat them pretty soon so I don't repeat a mistake I made in Vanuatu and save my food for the afternoon by which time enough bacteria has grown to give me a lovely case of food poisoning. But even with the food poisoning it would be worth it. After all my culinary experimentation I have dubbed today "Food Day" and will try to have more in the future, preferably every time I enter a new country so I can get acquainted with the local "slop" as Doug puts it. I'm actually surprised I waited this long to do a food post, considering I freaking love food and everything food-related. It's times like this when I'm thankful for the poor sanitary conditions of Vanuatu. Just think, if I hadn't been eating food by sneezing, scabies-infested-baby-carrying women who never washed their hands, I might not be able to eat all the food over here without getting amoebic dysentery! Bird flu? Water-borne pathogens? Pssh, whatever!

And for all my island tawis please enjoy the following.

Pig pig pig!