Phnom Penh

We left Siem Riep yesterday at 7AM after a bit of confusion with the buses. For a minute there Fiona and I were afraid that we were going to be making the 7 hour drive in a VW minibus, but it turned out that the minibus was just a transport to the real bus. Luckily, it was a decent tour bus sized vehicle replete with air-conditioning. Not bad for $3 a ticket.

The roads were shocking, but nowhere near as bad as the road from the Cambodia/Thai border to Siem Riep. There were even streches of pavement on this highway. After a few weeks of driving on dirt roads, riding on asphalt seems like a dream. It's like floating along in a hovercraft.

However, the most shocking thing was the stops along the way. Every two hours or so the bus would pull off at a rest stop-type place and everyone would pile out of the bus for a stretch. There were four Westerners on the bus (out of about 50 people), so we would just stand there stupidly as everyone did what they did. Some people would head to the bathrooms, some would go to the shady area and smoke, but most of the Cambodians would make a beeline for the fried bug stalls.

Simply put, these people love to eat bugs. It doesn't even matter what kind of bugs. They love them all. Crickets, beetles, cockroaches, and even big hairy spiders. They eat them by the bagful.

I can't say I bought a pound of them, but Fiona and I both tried them. How can you not? Surprisingly, they weren't that bad at all. Crunchy - almost like potato chips. And we were pleased to find that they're not full of weird juices. They just munch right down like Doritos.

The trick is that you have to pull the legs off before you pop them in your mouth. Otherwise the little legs get stuck in your teeth, and there's nothing worse than having to floss out a grasshopper leg from in between your molars.

Posted by flow Frazao on June 11, 2005 at 02:12 AM in Southeast Asia | Permalink