Snakes on a boat...
Trip Start
Jun 05, 2008
1
21
38
Trip End
Sep 28, 2008
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
the plan was simple:
1. take a Cambodian cooking class in downtown siem reap
2. Mr. Lok takes us to Tonle Sap Lake for 90 minute boat ride around a floating village.
3. Mr. Lok returns and takes us to Phnom Bakeng, a hill temple in Angkor, to see sunset.
4. We get massages.
Instead, what happens:
1
snake. yum.
. The cooking class chefs take us on a tour through the food market where we get to see lots of new things like the neon pink Dragon fruit, fresh spices such as tamarind, glenga, and lemon grass, Pomelo fruit, green mangoes and of course skinned snakes, pigs head, pig blood, dozens of rows of stiffened dead chickens and all types of shanks of raw meat..yummy. Cooking class is a blast where I learn how to make deeelicious shrimp summer rolls and a Chicken Basil and Lemongrass concoction and a banana coconut milk and tapioca desert. We meet two other girls from NYC who are traveling SE Asia and they make a whole slew of things including the tradiational Cambodian dish called Amok - a blend of coconut milk, tamarind spice, garlic, onions, mushrooms and a choice of meat or veggie. Its served in a banana leaf folded like oragamic into a box and drizzled with coconut cream. Its delicious and I wholeheartedly recommend you immediately seek out your nearest Cambodian restaurant. After eating our fill and laughingly prying sleepy Mr Lok from his tuk tuk and forcing him to indulge in the deserts, we head off for the bumpy ride to Tonle Sap Lake.
2. The ride as usual takes us through gorgeous terrain, rice paddies dotted with slender coconut treets, tall powerful age old tropical trees and venders selling coconuts, sodas, and all sorts of wares. Arriving at the lake we board a boat to see a floating village. Everything, literally everything is on these wooden house boats including the vegetable market, the schoolhouse , the "gas station" - a floating boat with a generator that charges batteries. In these homes ragged children swing in hammocks, men in row boats swing out fish nets and women sell vegetables from boat to boat. It's cheap living and most of these people are extremely poor Cambodians and Vietnamese. The children are generally naked or half clothed except for those in the school boat.
While riding on the boat we stop at these large tourist restaurant boats where down the hatch sit a half dozen hungry alligators just waiting for someone to fall in. Purely a tourist attraction, the alligators are used for nothing but attracting people to the restaurant. Dozens of poor children from teh surrounding boats some to the restaurant to beg for money. It seems that poverty is quite the stimulus for inventiveness as many of the children have taken large empty styrofoam boxes and fashioned them into little boats to use as transportation around their village. The kids sit in them and paddle around with their hands while sitting cross-legged scrunched in these white boxes. Hilarious. Upon landing at the restaurant dozens of kids in boxes paddle up to us begging for money. One boy holds a meter long snake in his hands and offers to let me hold it...Squemishly i touch it...then pet it...then feel absolutely freaked out and am about to runaway when Mr. Lok our savior gives me the courage to hold it. Its soft and not slimy and is pretty sweet to actually hold and you can feel its muscles moving under its skin as the snake readjusts around my neck. Thank Buddha its defanged and its mouth is sutured shut but even as I look it in the eye, it sticks and waggles its forked tongue at me. Mr Lok proceeds to place the snake around my neck as I freak out as calmly as possible knowing theres a reptile on my neck.
We stop at the school where we're told that these children are incredibly poor and need help...that we should go to the nearby supply shop boat and buy school supplies. We go, but I'm completely disgusted upon learning that a package of notebook for maybe 10 kids costs 15 dollars and 8 pencils are 3 bucks. I'd rather give each kid a dollar and with that they could buy 5 notebooks from CVS. While I know that ultimately the kids are getting school supplies with our help, its sad that jointly the tourists and these children are being taken advantage of...that with the $15 we spent on 16 pencils and 10 flimsy composition books, one child could have bought herself multiple notebooks, a pair of clothes, meals for a week and ltos of pencil from that store. Instead she gets only one because tourists are the ones that buy it at inflated rates and give profit to those who have conspired to conduct these schemes. It left a sour taste in my mouth...
That is until we docked and hungry Mr Lok decided to make a few purchses...one being grilled snake. It apparently is National Snake day since Fuj and I just finished holding one around our necks.
The snakes sit on a coal grill and are cooked to a crisp and flavored with some sort of sweet smelling bar b q sauce. The store owner chops away at hte snake with a cleaver, gathers the pieces and dumps it into a plastic baggie. Mr Lok takes out a piece and hands me a strip. I automatically gag even upon the thought of it in my mouth. But with enough cajoling from Mr Lok and that all too familiar peer pressure from Fuj, I muster up the courage and take a little strip. What I taste is not so bad but what I'm thinking is absolutely repulsive. I can't imagine that slithering scaley thing in my mouth and almost choke. But objectively, the snake isn't so bad. Tastes like BBQ chicken w/ a crunch. After a little Fuj finds her cajones and take a strip wincing at the thought but taking it like a champ.
We end the day with fabulous massages for $20 and a vegetarian dinner - a nice change from such a carnivorous day.
