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.

Snail hunting in Saigon

In preparation for this trip, I watched and rewatched Anthony Bourdain's episodes in Vietnam. In his South Vietnam feature, Bourdain visited what he termed as "Oc Street" in Saigon, an entire street dedicated to serving snail (oc means snail in Vietnamese) and other seafood delicacies, such as shellfish, clams, oysters, and soft-shelled crab. Watching him feast on snail and crab, cooked in tamarind sauce and all sorts of spicy goodness made my mouth water and I told myself then that when I went to Vietnam, I had to find this Oc Street and eat there.

I asked my family of such a street and they immediately knew what I talking about, but they were more surprised that I would actually want to eat there. "Aren't you scared?", they asked me. Scared? Why would I be scared? Should I be scared? Apparently, these places aren't known to be the cleanest and with my foreigner stomach, the risk of getting a stomach ache or even worse, food poisoning is high. Pssh...screw that. I wasn't going to pass up the chance to eat seafood for a third of the price it would cost in the States and seeing that my stomach has been surprisingly healthy so far, I was game.

They took me out on a Saturday night and Saigon was bursting at the seams with energy. Everyone was out on their motorbikes, taking in the nightlife and the streets were full of hungry people looking for some good Southern Vietnamese food to fill up their stomach to either sober up or prepare for the drunken festivities ahead.

Oc Street is located in Saigon's District 4, an area well-known by locals to be sketchy and dangerous, but also where you can find some good drunk food. The street itself isn't difficult to find because once you locate an oc restaurant in the area, chances are there are many more around the corner. With so many restaurants to choose from, we randomly picked a place to eat.

The other patrons were mainly young men, already drunk and thoroughly enjoying their late-night dinners. The place was staffed by young, pretty girls, fitting for the clientele and the ambiance in which they were serving. And the cleanliness? The seats were covered with a layer of dirt and when I tried going to the restroom, there were no stall doors, no toilet paper, and the toilet itself was crumbling and moldy. Oh, it was also unisex. I decided it was best to wait until I went home. But all of this didn't matter because when the food arrived, the aroma and the presentation captured all of my senses.

The first dish, clams cooked in tamarind sauce with peanut bits as garnish. The sauce made the dish--the right amount of sweet and sour.
My favorite dish. Not sure what type of clam this is, but pour a little fish sauce on top and scoop the whole thing in your mouth. So, so good.
Clams cooked in a hotpot of lemongrass soup.

Spicy soft-shelled crab. This dish was too spicy for my taste and my lips were burning red after eating just a few.
Mussels eaten with fish sauce.
And the snail dish? I left the ordering to my family and they ended up not ordering snail, which was what I had been anticipating the most. Not really sure why that was the case, but it didn't really bother me, considering that this was one of the best seafood meals I ever had in my life. It was also the cheapest. Every dish was around 45,000-55,000 dong, which is about $2 to $3 per dish and rounded out to be about $20 for the entire meal (we ordered seconds). A seafood meal such as this would run around $40 at the very least in the States. So cheap.

My seafood cravings are satisfied for now, but I'm still hunting for a good snail joint and I will gladly return to Oc Street again to continue my search.

A trip down memory lane

I'm in Saigon now and for my first day here, my Mom wanted to go to the center of the city and explore the area. What was supposed to be a nice walk around the touristy area to do a little shopping turned into a trip down memory lane for my Mom, who used the occasion to point out places where she and my Dad used to go to for their dates.

I heard about the ice cream at 'Kem Bach Dang' from my friend, Amy, who told me that it was delicious. Apparently, it is a famous ice cream parlor and so popular that it has two stores located side by side. It also was where my Dad would take my Mom on their dates. Considering that my Mom was a spoiled city girl, it is only understandable that my Dad, a poor country bumpkin, would take her to such a fancy place.


I had high expectations for this place, but it was alright. I got a cocoa ice cream and it honestly tasted like any other ice cream I could get in America. It was good, but nothing special.
It cost 45,000 dong, which is a little over $2 USD. Very cheap for US standards, but for the average Vietnamese, it is very pricey and the reason why there were only foreigners in this place.

Rex hotel, where U.S army soldiers used to stay. There's a cinema inside and my Mom and Dad would go there for movie dates.
This was the coolest site my Mom pointed out--the main postal office, where my Mom would go to send my Dad letters. I was told that back then, my Mom loved writing poetry and that she was very good at it. I imagine my Mom, skipping class to hop on her Honda motorcycle, to zoom to the center of the city to send my Dad a love letter she took hours to write.
It was sweet to see my Mom pointing out these places. She is usually too embarrassed to talk about their courtship, so seeing her open up about the places they went was really cool. They just had their 35th wedding anniversary (they were married exactly one month after the Fall of Saigon, in 1975) so obviously dates at these places worked out as planned.

That's all for now. Here's a pic of my swollen mosquito bite on the sole of my foot. Have a good Memorial Day!

Some things never change

I went to visit my Dad's family in Tay Ninh, which sits close to the border of Vietnam and Cambodia. I had heard that Tay Ninh changed a lot from the countryside it once was to a more developed city with lots of foreign money flowing in. When I visited 11 years ago, Tay Ninh was straight up country. For example, my Dad's village shared one telephone and toilet. Yeah, it was that type of country.

The Tay Ninh that I came back to today was no longer a place with open fields and undisturbed jungle, but a clean and developed city (the cleanest I've seen in Vietnam). Now everyone has their own cell phone, even my rice farming uncles. My Dad's village is no longer isolated in the country jungle as it once was, but surrounding it are new homes blasting karaoke music. Despite the fact that Tay Ninh, the city, was unrecognizable from my childhood memories, there were some essential elements that remain unchanged.

For one, there's the country toilet. Still in use after all these years. This is a true country toilet, made out of scrap wood and metal over a pond. I remember using this when I was little, nervously walking over the wood plank to climb inside, in fear that I would fall into a pond of feces. Back then, the pond was much bigger and there were actually fish living in it that would jump up to eat your poo..while you were pooping. I remember one time, my uncles actually caught one of the fishes from this pond and ATE IT. So disgusting. It was all a fun novelty then. Now, you couldn't even pay me to sit inside one of these.



Country toilet paper--old newspapers and scraps of paper.
These freaking huge fire ants. I remember one time, I stepped into a hill of fire ants and they all swarmed my feet and bit me. This time, I made sure to watch my step.
The home where my Dad grew up in. The right portion is exactly as it was when my Dad lived there.
My Grandma. 80 years old and as strong as ever. I'm told I look exactly like her, especially when my Mom is pissed off at me.
You know how every family has a drunk uncle? Well, EVERY SINGLE ONE of my blood uncles are drunks. I say that fondly because they are all very kind and good to me, especially the last one on the left, who is my uncle from my Mom's side. He is an interesting character, worthy of a blog post of his own.
My Dad comes from quiet folk. I tried asking my uncles about my Dad--what they remembered about him, how he was as a kid, if they had any good memories of him-- but all I got was "He was our oldest brother...He was nice." That's it. Uhh...okay. It was understandable that they didn't know anything about my Dad because my Dad is much older than his siblings and he left home when he was 18 to join the war. He hasn't seen his family since 1975 (a very, very important year in this country and also within my family). He doesn't even recognize which brothers are which anymore. Fortunately, they all look SO MUCH ALIKE that it wouldn't be difficult for him at pick out his family members. Walking around my Dad's village, I felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Everyone in the village had features resembling my Dad. So freaky.

Uncle, Chu 7. He used to bring us to the rice fields to play.
Tammy says he looks exactly like our Dad, especially when he walks.
My super short uncle, who is only a little taller than me. He also has a high pitched voice, which made it difficult for me to listen to him with a straight face.
My smiling Uncle. I call him that because he's always smiling. Always. He actually has a sad back story. After I heard about it, it made look at the constant smile on his face a little differently. It's pretty depressing and I hope he can finally move on and get his life together, but I know that that's wishful thinking.

My Dad around 18 0r 19 years old.
My Dad's high school, still in use for over 100 years. When my Dad attended, it was a boys only school and very difficult to get into. My Dad is the only one in his family to have ever finished school. He is well known and respected for his intelligence, despite growing up with literally nothing. It is one of the many qualities I admire most about him.


Even though Tay Ninh is more developed, it still is very country (much more than My Tho, where my Mom's family lives). These are some of the country scenes I loved then and even more now.


Unfortunately, everything can't stay the same.

This is my Grandpa. He has been bedridden for three years. A few days before our visit, he had to have a catheter put inside him because he can no longer go to the bathroom on his own. It is understood by all that he has a very short time to live. I knew of his condition, but I wasn't prepared to actually see him. I have always been uncomfortable around the issue of death, so I knew that seeing him would be difficult but I didn't realize that I would react the way I did. Because when I saw him, I saw my Dad and seeing this man that looks so much like my Dad in such a vulnerable state, a frail body of skin and bones and so close to death--it killed me. I was only able to come close to him two times an each time I ran away to hide and cry. It was an emotional reunion and one that I will always, always remember.

Learning how to ride a motorbike

Taught by my awesome uncle in the backroads of the countryside. SO much fun. It was hard getting the hang of it at first. My uncle told me to ride it like a bike and to be steady with the gas (which, if you've ever driven in a car with me, is a difficult task). My poor uncle was running along with me, making sure that I wouldn't fall or drive his motorbike into the rice fields. After a few tries and close stumbles, I think I finally got it. My uncle told me that after a few more lessons, I should be ready to ride by myself!