Wat Ek Phnom

  Battambang, Cambodia
Monday, May 4, 2009

Today the same driver picked me up again.  This time we are heading north.  
The main event today is Wat Ek Phnom.  So I spent the morning climbing around an ancient temple.  It's lovely out there climbing and sitting in the middle of nowhere.  The only problem is with rocks everywhere if you kick one in flip flops it hurts.  

My guide wanted to give me a good day so took me around to see how rice paper was made.  This rice paper is used for fresh spring rolls (I'm a big fan of these in Myanmar, they are steamed and great.  In Cambodia I find them a little too minty and full of coriander). 

Then to a fish paste factory.  FACTORY ha ha ha.  More like a garage with fish lying on a concrete floor.  This stuff was grey and gross and I've eaten it.  Some times it's best not to know.  


Then we went to where rice noodles are made, which is with rice flour in a paste pushed through a "sieve" and boiled.  Then it was off to see bamboo sticky rice being made. 

This involves cooking rice, beans and coconut milk inside a bit of bamboo.  It is good takeaway food and environmentally friendly. 

Then a quick visit to a fishing village, and finally the bamboo train which runs on a single track between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.  They take the lightest one off the rail if they met one coming in the other direction.