Cambodia’s journey from hell to heaven
ISABEL CONWAY visits Cambodia, sampling its tranquil waterways and stunning temples – not to mention a deep-fried tasty critter or two...
Our appetisers arrive and who should be glowering down, hair askew and wildly gesticulating than Gordon Ramsay himself. The short-fused superchef is all the more terrifying when dubbed in a foreign language on a TV screwed to the wall above your table.
Some of us wonder what he would think of the snacks set before us. These include hot-from-the-wok crispy crickets, peppery fried beetles and a large roast spider (almost as frightening as Ramsay). There’s also a scattering of grilled silkworms, a gathering of nuked frogs and a favourite Cambodian delicacy, slippery embryo duck, traditionally scooped out from the shell and slurped with a spoon. Taking a deep gulp of my gin-laced ginger mojito I prayed to Gordon for guidance, before popping a (surprisingly succulent) beetle or two into my
mouth, followed by a couple of small deep-fried crickets on offer at ‘Touk’, a lively spot in downtown Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital.
Splintering the crisp shells of the critters with my teeth, a considerable amount of late-night flossing lies ahead. The crickets tasted like deep-fried chicken skin mixed with cardboard, the beetles more like meaty sweetcorn.
Our Cambodian leader, Ronnie, was dissecting the ‘big as your palm’ spider, urging us to try a bit and have a go at the duck embryos, but no-one stepped up to the plate. As an antidote to such unusual gastro adventure, a few fellow diners’ thoughts have turned to chips and burgers. Speculation mounted that pizza may be available on the western-style menu.
By now, some of us had moved on to more mainstream local fare – half a dozen tasty minced pork wontons (US$4) followed by fragrant and spicy ‘Khmer Amok’ chicken, wrapped in a banana leaf ($6.75), enjoying Cambodia’s renowned cuisine at knock-down prices.
Eating insects is nothing new in South East Asia. Known as ‘hunger food’ during the Cambodian famine of the ’70s created by the Khmer Rouge regime, insects are respected as a cheap and plentiful source of protein and micronutrients, good for the many malnourished children, especially in rural areas.
Our entertaining introduction to edible six-legged ‘critters’ is yet another stand-out moment on my G Adventures 10-day Mekong River Encompassed journey. We have set out from Ho Chi Minh City, ending at Siem Reap with an eight-day cruise aboard a comfortable 14-cabin classic riverboat, Toum Tiou II, taking the ‘slow lane’ through southern Vietnam up to Cambodia.
Departing Ho Chi Minh City’s frantic pace and sudden downpours (it’s the start of the rainy season) 16 of us walk the gangplank at the port. We’re an inquisitive, travel-mad lot who enjoy our cocktails, Tiger beer and the ‘craic’, hailing from Australia, Canada, the US, Ireland, France, Germany and the UK.
Passengers quickly fall into the unhurried rhythm of the journey taking us from the widest point of the Mekong Delta plied by container barges into narrow sleepy backwaters, criss-crossed by tributaries, dotted with slender fishing canoes and bobbing sampans.
Now and then we could almost reach out to the riverbanks from our sun-deck loungers and touch shady papaya groves, guava and water coconuts, bent double under the weight of their fruit, and spy inside the precarious corrugated roofed stilted houses.
In Vinh Trang and on Vietnam’s border with Cambodia at Chau Doc, we explore temples embellished with gilt, prancing dragons and all manner of ornamentation. Here, some of us climb Sam mountain, and our guide, Bao, tells how a young woman had a Lourdeslike apparition on the spot where we make a wish and release tiny caged birds ($1 released two) who fly to freedom. A Buddhist monk imparts blessings at Vihara monastery, with its wonderful frescos.
Each day heralds a mix of immersive activities – visits to cottage industries, coconut candy making on Thoi Son island; a dodgems-like journey through canals bumping other row boats; a rice wine distillery; sugar palm farming etc. On land, we walk, cycle and even travel by ox-cart. On the water, we transfer into sampans and small rowing boats to reach islands, coming close to exotic floating villages and markets of the Mekong and Tonle Sap lake.
Appearances can be deceptive here. Travelling by ox-cart from a hamlet at Kampong Tralach, we pass ramshackle huts on stilts from where children wave, dogs doze and wrinkled grandmothers laugh at the sight of silly foreigners bumping alongside paddy fields.
This is ‘middle of nowhere’ Cambodia, yet somehow and somewhere our riverboat assistant barman – the ever-resourceful Udong – has found me an iPhone adapter to replace my broken one. He cycles up beside our trotting ox-cart, flinging it triumphantly into my lap.
In traffic-congested Phnom Penh, our choice of transport is the Cyclo rickshaw attached to the front of a bicycle. We soak up the vibe on busy streets, passing the sumptuous Royal Palace complex, Independence statue and other notable landmarks.
A pilgrimage to Choeung Ek, 16km south-east of Phnom Penh, the most visited of the hundreds of Cambodian ‘killing fields’, is an essential, intensely shocking lesson on Pol Pot’s genocidal regime that annihilated millions.
The new movie adaptation of First They Killed My Father (directed by Angelina Jolie) is the powerful, tragic story of Loung Ung, who was trained as a child soldier by the Khmer Rouge.
It educates younger genera-
tions to past unspeakable cruelty and heartbreak.
At the notorious detention centre S-21 in old town Phnom Penh, there is further horrific evidence of the barbarity of Pol Pot and his followers. I meet one of only seven survivors from its 20,000 internees. Norng Chanphal was nine when Vietnamese soldiers, who drove out the Khmer Rouge, found him hiding in the prison kitchens with his younger brother.
Mr Chanphal speaks haltingly and allows some memories to flood back as we share a bench close to the former torture chambers and onemetre-wide cells. ‘When I last saw my mother’s face she was crying, waving at us from a window here before they took her away to the killing fields.’
It was only in 2009 that he finally broke his 30-year silence (he could not bear to remember before) to give evidence at Cambodia’s War Crimes Court. ‘I was one of the only survivors and I could tell them the terrible things I saw and experienced here.’
The memory of Mr Chanphal and others I met have left a lasting impression. They have been to Hell and back; they forgive the past for the sake of their children and future generations, believing their nations must move on and that good triumphs in the end.
With just one-and-a-half days in Vietnam’s bustling hub of Ho Chi Minh City, my visit is blurred by torrential downpours and a sea of plastic poncho clad motor bikes and scooters advancing along its traffic choked streets. A bus trip through teeming suburbs takes us out to the famous Cu Chi tunnels. Dug by the Viet Cong and covering hundreds of kilometres, they hid soldiers, and were used by thousands of civilians to shelter from American bombs.
Other highlights include the War Remnants Museum, the Reunification Palace and the former Presidential Palace, left as it was when Viet Cong tanks smashed through the gates, those same tanks still standing guard.
We disembark at Toum Tiou, an hour’s drive from Siem Reap, bidding a nostalgic farewell to our ever-smiling helpful crew, led by manager Carlos and Ronnie, who is G Adventures’ chief experience officer.
The world descends on mega touristic Siem Reap to see one of the greatest wonders of the world, the vast majestic temples at Angkor. For centuries it was consumed by jungle and roamed by elephants and tigers before being rediscovered. Nowadays, armies of bloggers and vloggers roam the huge complex of intricately carved temples searching for the best sunrise and sunset shots.
For our grand finale, we enjoy more delicious Khmer food, this time at the New Hope Vocational Training restaurant, an initiative kick-started by G Adventures to help orphans and disadvantaged teenagers in Siem Reap.
Drinks and snacks arrive and nestling among the potato crisps are the other local crispy bites. Care for a cricket anyone? someone asks. A noticeable rush on the Pringle lookalikes follows!