First Proper Food Blog of Cambodia

So it's been a while since I did a foodie blog....since Malaysia actually. Many people told us before we came out to Cambodia that:

1. You are never full no matter how much you eat

2. The food is bland

3. There isn't much variety.

4. The meat doesn't fill you up, the chicken's, cows, etc are all skinny.

Well, what can we say, this isn't completely true. Yes the animals are skinny, but we haven't been hungry since being here. Granted it has taken us a while to find the good stuff, but found it we have.

The market in Baray is quite small compared to markets in other villages, but it has pretty much all we need. And anything we don't have we just get in Phnom Penh. When we were there last we went to one of the supermarkets and bought a tub of Thai Green Curry paste. On coming back to Baray we searched high and low for coconut milk. We couldn't find it anywhere, but that's because we weren't being very clever. In an area abundant with coconuts why would anyone want coconut milk in a can? We were introduced to a lady in the market who cracks open mature coconuts and then extracts the white coconut out for you with her spinning machine thing. We bought about 200g of this and carried it off home for squeezing. God is good in that He made sure Alvin had 12 years in Malaysia to learn and see various things such as how to extract coconut milk. After a good hour of squeezing this was the fruit of our..er I mean Alvin's labour. The first press was so yummy, so rich and creamy. The curry was very very very nice, but I don't think we'll be having it too often...it's just too much work.

We go to the market at least once a day, and it's been great getting to know the stall owners. We have our trusted veg lady and pork lady who we buy from, they give us a good price and show us how to pick the nice stuff....well at least I think that's what they're doing!! Usually we'll just see what's fresh in the market that day and then buy it for lunch/dinner. Last week I managed to get my hands on a block of tofu, they don't always have it, and when they do it goes quickly. So I was very happy with my purchase and scoffed it all for lunch.

On Monday to Wednesday mornings Alvin and I go to the market for breakfast before we go to teach at Manook school. This has allowed us to try a lot of the local cooking. Here are some of my favourites.

Noodles with pork and beef - squeeze lots of lime into this and add chilli....ahhh so good. Next to it is my daily cup of iced coffee, better than any frappucino!! They like to have their iced coffee with fried dough (Yew char gwai), actually they call it char gwai as well, Chinese influence obviously.


Khmer noodles with curry soup, a small kind of yellow flower (no idea what it's called) and chopped lotus stem. The lady is Pastor Kea's sister, she makes the noodles at home every night.

Rice noodles with fried pig ear and intestine type stuff - don't be put off it is soooo good!!

After being fed and watered we go off to school and teach our grade 6 and 5. Hmm, whilst we're on the subject of school, last week we marked the student's books and made corrections. Alvin started first whilst I cooked lunch, after lunch however I checked through what he had done so I could do the same thing and be consistent. However this is what I found...prize to the first person to spot the mistake. So much for teaching the kids english!

Last Sunday the youths came across a snake. After teasing it at a distance they killed it by putting a stick through it's head. Here's Jonathan posing with the catch, he was the one who killed it. The snake was to be dinner afterwards. This is what we had, braised snake with onions, tomatoes and long bean over rice. Delightful :)

There's also so much fruit around, mountains of bananas, papayas, pineapples, coconuts, oranges, dragon fruit and guava. Some of the youths were helping to harvest the coconuts from the trees around CMS. Not sure whether you can see it in the photo or not, but Timothy here is one of the many Cambodian spidermen around, he just scuttles up and down coconut trees like he's walking down the road. Thanks to him, Alvin and I had fresh coconuts to drink from.

This is the lady who sells fried banana and fried yam about 10mins walk down the road from us. Alvin has become a regular and she now fries stuff for him fresh. I'm not sure how much he spends a week at this stall, but he visits it at least 3 times a week!
With all this good food around, we're not sure how but we've lost weight. Maybe it's because everything is fresh and not processed? Who knows?

Ok, that's all for now. Will write another food blog once I've accumulated enough material! Oh and by the way, it wasn't really snake in the photo, that was just my canned mackeral in tomato sauce...although Pastor Kea's wife Vuthy did cook snake one night last week with banana flower which was very tasty...just don't eat the skin as it's a bit tough.

An Education...

It's been a real learning experience living in this village, and I thought it would be nice to give you a little
list of things we have learnt or come to realise:

1. When we first got here we were intent on minimising the number of insects in the apartment,
especially the ants. Now we can't be bothered, and in fact we quite like having the ants around as they
clean up the place for us. Luca was up in our apartment yesterday and was eating a toffee, he dribbled
everywhere. There were little round pools of sticky sugary saliva in various places. I cleaned up some but
missed others, later on I noticed little circles of ants. Turns out they were eating up the sugary saliva.
Within half and hour they were gone as was the saliva. Last night I dropped a bit of food on the worktop
whilst cooking and thought I'd clean it when I did the washing up. When I went back into the kitchen to
wash up, there was a group of ants happily munching away. Alvin told me to leave it and see if they
cleared it all away. I check the worktop this morning and it was spotless. Fab, I don't have to clean
anymore!! I just wish they also took away dust and hair so I don't have to sweep up!!

2. Mosquito repellent doesn't work. The mosquitos here are like commando mosquitos, they are not
fazed at all by our repellent, in fact I suspect they are drawn to it!!. We think the next best thing is to
burn something like a mosquito coil, or in fact anything which creates smoke is good at getting rid of
them. The locals however don't use the coils much or any repellent. Instead there is a leaf they eat as
part of their diet, roughly translated as duck egg leaf (because it's similar in shape), which if you eat
enough of it makes you sweat a certain odour which mosquitos don't like. Alvin and I have taken to
eating A LOT of this leaf. It's really nice in a salad with some cucumber and chilli sauce :)

3. Two nights ago there was a massive storm, crazy lightning and thunder. When the lightning struck
the sound was like the earth tearing apart, a massive cracking sound. Our little wooden apartment was
shaking away and being battered by the rain. The next morning Pastor Kea told Alvin that next time
there is big storm we should switch our phones off as it acts like a mast. He was praying all night for us
hoping we would know to switch our mobile phone off, he himself doesn't have a phone so he couldn't
call us to tell us. We of course didn't know, but I'm sure his prayers kept us safe. So peeps, when you
are living in an unearthed wooden house with a corrugated metal roof at your entrance and there's an
electrical storm going on outside, switch your phone off.

4. I have learnt how to prepare and preserve fish you buy at the market in the morning so you can keep it
until the evening for your dinner. Wash the fish out, cut lots of slits along the fleshy bit and rub salt in.
Then in the evening when you want to cook it, wash the salt out and cook it...or just leave the salt in if
you want to have salted fish. Living in the UK we just bung everything in the fridge and know it'll be fine,
it's good to learn new ways of keeping things fresh.

5. Do not leave any food in plastic bags! I thought it would be good to leave stuff in the bag we bought it
in, all tied up and stuff, so the ants and flies wouldn't be able to get in and eat it. One of the Khmer girls
here saw a ready cut pineapple we had bought sitting in the bag in the kitchen, she shrieked, ran over to
the bag and opened it, then proceeded to scold me for tying it up as it would go off. Food left in bags in
a hot country is not a good idea, better to leave it open, if the ants and flies get on it then just wash the
food off before you eat it...I'm sure a lot of you are cringing at the thought of still eating the food. It's not
so bad, Alvin and I are ok. Hopefully our immune systems are stronger because of it!!!

The Past Week and a Half - New Experiences

It's been a really busy but fun week and a half just gone. The Cambodians have just celebrated a festival
called Pro Chum Banh (or something like that!), one of their favourite past times during the rainy season
is to go swimming. However, this isn't swimming like you and I know it to be, there are no swimming
costumes or swimming pools involved. Last Monday Pastor Kea invited us to go for a boat ride and then
swimming with his family, we thought this would be good fun so said yes. So Monday afternoon after
lunch, we all got on our motos and drove down to catch the boat. The boat was about 3 metres long and
about a metre wide, we managed to fit 11 adults, 2 teenagers, 3 children, plus all the food, life jackets
and bags onto the boat. The Cambodians sure do like to cram people onto every type of transport they
have!!

The boat ride took about 20 mins, and along the way we got to see some really amazing scenery. We
tried to take some pictures, but it really just doesn't match up to actually being there so I'd rather not
show you the photo. Just imagine land that is flooded as far as the eye can see, then picture some
really tall palm trees along the horizon. When we got to the swimming area there were so many people,
and everyone is fully clothed jumping around and swimming in the water. Some girls were swimming in
long trousers, a long sleeve top and then a cardigan over it! Not sure why they bothered with the
cardigan really. It was really good fun, and a fantastic way to cool down, although I was a little
apprehensive at first because the water looked so muddy. But in the end I just thought, "ah, who cares!"
and jumped in.

Luca and I

Example of the fully clothed swimmers

From Wednesday to Friday we went back into Phnom Penh in order to get our visas extended. Whilst
there we stayed in a hotel instead of at the Khmer Life hostel. As you all know Alvin has had the
opportunity to work and stay in some really nice hotels in the UK, so when we go on holiday he's quite
fussy when it comes to hotels...especially the way they are furnished. I think his fussyness has
changed now since staying in the village. The hotel was very basic, a bed, desk, tv, wardrobe and clean
bathroom - with a western style toilet (thank you God!!)....but most importantly it was bug free and there
was air conditioning!!! What a luxury. We throughly enjoyed the respite from the creepy crawlies, but
then we did miss our little apartment in Baray and it was nice to come back after a few days.



On Sunday Alvin preached at the youth service for the first time. The youth at Som Roun church have
their own service separate from the adults, I guess you could say it's like TJ's or TPF (or Alive as I've
been told it's now called!), they have worship, prayer, sharing, tithes and offertory and a sermon. Pastor
Kea asked Alvin on Saturday evening (6pmish) if he could preach, the conversation went something like
this:

Pastor Kea: Alvin can you share the word tomorrow?
Alvin: Preach?
Pastor Kea: Yes, at youth service
Alvin: Tomorrow?
Pastor Kea: Yes, tomorrow
Alvin: Er...ok, what's the topic?
Pastor Kea: No topic
Alvin and me: Huh!!??
Pastor Kea: I preach on vision in adult service, maybe you can do the same.
Alvin: Er...ok then.

So he did. And here he is in action, with Abednego translating for him.



On Monday we were able to meet with the principle and assistant principle of Manook Primary school.
We decided that we would teach english three times a week to grades 6 and 5, there are about 30 kids
in each class. Lessons start at 7am and teach grade 6 for an hour and then move next door to teach
grade 5. It's been really fun teaching the kids, we chose not to have translation so there has been a lot
of actions and over exaggerated facial expressions the past two days. But the kids understand, and now
they can all say:

1) Hello, what is your name? My name is...
2) How are you? I am fine thank you.

And grade 6 are also able to distinguish between his and her, all in all pretty good progress for only 2
hours of lesson time! All the kids are so well behaved and eager to learn. One difficult thing is learning
their names, so then we got them all to make name plates. Here's a pic of our grade 6 busy drawing
their names.


On Monday night we also launched the boy/girl discussion group. It was then decided that the girl's
group would meet on Monday night, there would be a mixed English Bible study on Tuesday evenings
and then a boy's group on Thursdays.

A couple of the youths also asked Alvin to teach them how to dance "like hip hop style", even though
Alvin doesn't really know how to dance "like hip hop style". But he taught them what little he does
know, the 6 step arm wave. Here's the teacher and his two students (l-r Vannier & Jonathan) hard at work. Us girls just sat around eating papaya and laughing at them.