Mmmm...Crickets

We stopped by a "bug market" on our way to Phnom Penh and I couldn't resist the urge to try some insect delicacies. Bugs are pretty standard fare in Cambodia, where they are normally eaten with rice. Insect catching contraptions, made out of huge white tarp and hung on wooden sticks, are also found everywhere in the countryside.

This particular market had a whole bunch of insect, either sold fresh and cooked right then and there for you or those already cooked. When I got off the bus, sellers (mainly young girls) swarmed at us, trying to convince us to purchase all types of bugs.

Tarantula. *Shudder* I would have tried it if I didn't see the live version. Right when I got off the bus, they shoved this live tarantula in my face and I immediately lost my appetite.
Tarantulas are roasted and eaten whole.
This mountain of spiders looks appetizing, doesn't it?

Praying Mantis. I found these guys too pretty to eat. Beetles. They looked too much like cockroaches for me to stomach.

I stuck to crickets, which I considered a safer bet. These crickets are fried to a crispy goodness.

For 1,000 riel (only a few American cents), I got a small bag of crickets.

This little girl sold me the crickets also showed me how to eat them. You can either take off the wings and legs or just pop the whole bug in your mouth.
I was a bit hesitant at first because they really do look gross. I couldn't stop thinking about how it would look in my mouth as I would chew them--the body oozing insect juice on my tongue and the head crunching under my teeth. Uggh.
But, I got over myself and just popped the whole thing in my mouth. It was crunchy and honestly tasted like chips, a little salty like shrimp chips. No oozing insect juice. I was so surprised by the familiar taste that I began popping them in my mouth as if eating a bag of chips.

I ended eating most of it because I got hungry during my bus ride. One thing that really bothered me was the legs, which got stuck between my teeth so I spent much time during the rest of the bust ride to Phnom Penh irritatingly trying to pick them out.

Fish foot massage in Siem Reap, Cambodia

My feet are gross...really gross. I went to Vung Tau, a beach resort town a bit outside of Saigon, and the ocean water mixed with the leather from my sandals stained my feet a dark black to look like I just spent the day working in the rice fields. The skin on the heel of my foot is also rough and calloused from walking and I can easily pull dead skin from old blisters off of my toes. I've tried brushing my feet and exfoliating it with St. Ives apricot scrub, but nothing seems to work.

Then I went to the Siem Reap night market, where there were many fish massage stalls scattered throughout the market with very forward workers trying to get you into their stall. They're more of an attraction to foreigners, who are lured in by the cheap price ($2-3 for 20 minutes), a free can of coke/Angkor beer, and the novelty of having fish nibble on the dead skin of your feet. I was a bit hesitant at first because I wasn't sure if it was sanitary, but considering the awful state of my feet, I was willing to give it a try.

Massage is actually a misleading term because this is far from the soothing hand motions felt during a typical massage. These "massages" involve dunking your feet into a pool of fish, which then swarm your feet to feed off your dead skin. You kill two birds with one stone--feed the fish and have your callouses eaten off.

Right when I placed my feet into the inflatable pool that housed the hundreds of little fish, they swarmed my feet like bees to honey. I actually felt them nibbling my feet and it was very ticklish. After a few minutes of trying to restrain from pulling my feet out in a fit of laughter, I got used to the sensation of fish feasting on my old blisters and broken skin.

The fish loved eating Tammy's feet much more than mine.

Me, Tammy, and our new Finnish friend, Pilvi, who we met on our Cambodia tour--all enjoying our "massages."

After: Still Black! I thought those little fishies would eat off the stain on my feet, but they didn't. However, they did remove my callouses off my heels and toes so while it still looks disgusting, the sole of my feet were actually very smooth.
Was it worth it? Yes! The rough skin on my feet were eaten away and I had a new and interesting experience to store in my memory. Would I do it again? Only if I can pay the cheap prices I did in Siem Reap. Fish foot massages are something of a trend these days, worth a hefty price back in the States. So, I guess there is another reason for me to return to Cambodia.

Scenes from Angkor Wat

I'm currently on a four-day trip to Cambodia and like any typical traveler to this country, Angkor topped my list of destinations to visit. Angkor is a region that was inhabited by the Khmer empire, which reigned over nearly all of Southeast Asia from the 9th to the 14th century. Spanning an area as large as Manhattan, Angkor has over a thousand temples, all constructed by stone. Dominant among these temples is Angkor Wat, the largest single religious monument in the world dedicated to Buddhism.


Walking toward the complex, you feel its impressiveness despite its seemingly crumbling walls. I can't imagine the awe it must have imposed on visitors at the height of its glory.
Angkor Wat from above

Angkor Wat is surrounded by a man-made moat that was once filled with crocodiles to fend off enemies, namely the Vietnamese, with whom the Khmer were often at war. The causeway leading toward the complex is two football fields long.

Angkor Wat was inspired by Hinduism, the religion brought over by Indian traders. The king who built Angkor Wat wanted to create a home of gods, similar to one found in Hinduism. Even though Angkor Wat came to be a site dedicated to Buddhism, its architecture represents a fusion of these two religions. The towers are designed to replicate closed lotus flowers, which holds symbolic meaning in both religions.
Angkor Wat is a maze of long corridors. Every year on Buddha's birthday, thousands of monks make a pilgrimage to Angkor Wat and walk through these corridors. I was told it is a sight to see, with the gold of monks' robes contrasting the dark color of the stone walls as they walk through the corridors and meditate.
The Khmer empire were master stone carvers. All the temples at Angkor have intricate carvings on the wall, some better preserved than others. These carvings are very well preserved. Again, to imagine it at the height of its glory--all these intricate carvings lined every inch of the walls.
You will find Apsara dancers all over ancient Khmer architecture. Apsaras were believed to be beautiful angels, able to take on many forms. In ancient times, beautiful girls were pulled from throughout the kingdom to learn the Apsara dance form, performed topless for the king. Apsara traditional dancing (no longer topless) is one of the last links from the ancient kingdom that Cambodians have been able to preserve.

A library where religious scrolls were once kept. None of these scrolls survived hundreds of years in the jungle weather. Luckily, much religious writing is still preserved on the walls of Angkor Wat and scholars have been able to decipher these writings to understand life in the Khmer empire.

The stairs leading up the holy temple is very steep and narrow. They are scary to climb and even scarier to descend. In addition to Angkor Wat, I visited Angkor Thom (where a scene of Tomb Raider was filmed) and Bayon.
Bayon is famous for the stone faces that decorate the complex. These faces are a composite of the Khmer king who built Bayon and Buddha's compassionate face.
I was only able to spend a few hours at Angkor. There was just so much to see that even as I was touring the area, I was already planning my next trip there. Every temple is unique in its architecture and history that a second, even third or fourth trip is necessary. Often, I go to tourist attractions and leave thinking, "That was it?" but this was not the case at Angkor. I was awestruck by vastness of Angkor and the beauty of the temples. Hopefully, one day I can return again to hop across fallen stone architecture and wander the corridors of this amazing ancient empire.