On Friday I did meet up with Patrick, and he brought a whole bunch of other travellers he’d met too. I ended up going to the night market with one of them, a British fella who’s name’s escaping me at the moment, and I had a weird and funny experience… We were walking through the market, and came upon a place where a bunch of people were sitting around a big fish tank, with their feet in the water. It turns out that these little fish, who live off of algae in the wild, love dead skin as well! So for three bucks we sat down, stuck our feet in the fish tank, and the fish flocked around our feet and started eating off the dead skin… It tickled at first, but then it was just a very strange, but pleasant feeling, and my feet probably haven’t been so soft since before I could walk! 😛
On Saturday I managed to find the place with the miniatures of Angkor Wat. It was cool to see how it looks from above, and I took some photos, but it was only interesting for about ten minutes… Saturday night I treated myself to Norwegian food at the Soria Moria hotel, where they offer everyting on their menu at half price on Saturdays before eight. I had a feast on Norwegian poached salmon, with boiled potatoes, carrots, cucumber salad and Sandefjordssmør, and for dessert I had Norwegian waffles with strawberry jam… Heaven!
On Sunday I managed to find an international church in Siem Reap on google, and I went to the service at the non-denominational Christian Fellowship of Siem Reap. It was quite nice, but I didn’t really get in contact with many people that go there regularly, although I did speak to a Danish couple who work for an organization operating orphanages in Cambodia.
Yesterday I decided I wanted to learn how to cook some traditional Cambodian dishes, so I headed out early, and signed up for a cooking class at a restaurant called Le Tigre de Papier. At 10am I returned, after a hearty breakfast and an interesting conversation with a German guy who has treasurehunting as a hobby… Not old treasures, but “treasures” left out by other afficionados! They hide something somewhere virtually inaccessible, take a note of the GPS position, and post it on the net, at geocaching.com, then others can go out and try to find the treasure…
Another German, Jan Eric, was the only other person doing the cooking class that morning. We met up at 10am, decided what we wanted to make, and then headed off to the market with the chef to locate the ingredients. We didn’t actually buy anything, but she showed us what everything looked like. As a starter I made Nem, Cambodian spring rolls, and my main course was Amok, a very famous Cambodian fish curry. Jan Eric made a mango salad, and a variation of the Amok with scallops. For dessert we boiled tapioca and bananas in coconut milk. It was DELICIOUS, and we shared the food we ate, but weren’t anywhere close to being able to eat everything!
After the cooking class we decided to head out to a place called Aqua, that Jan Eric had found the day before, which has a swimming pool with a bar in the middle, and a pool table, pun intended, where we played pool in our swimming costumes. 🙂 He went to Phnom Penh this morning, but I went back to lie in the sun and read, and float around in the pool with an ice coffe in my hand most of today. I am considering moving on into Laos soon, but I’m also thinking about heading to Thailand to spend the Norwegian Constitution Day, May 17, at the Norwegian Church Abroad, Sjømannskirken, in Pattaya.