Travels with Hayley

After a dreadful nights sleep (my poor body clock is so confused) I was up and out at 8.30 for my first tour of the day! The main tour doesn’t start until 6pm Sunday so lest I waste a minute, I’ve booked three mini tours to do before then.

This morning was a street art and breakfast tour and I was the only one on it so that was exciting! The lovely guide Ms Monyka picked me up in the hotel in a tuk tuk driven by Mr Whan and sped me off to our first stop – breakfast 1 of 2 I was told!

We drove through streets buzzing with locals going about their business, everywhere you looked was packed with street vendors, mopeds buckling under the weight of parcels, produce and people, kids, dogs – you name it, it was happening in Phnom Penh this morning. We pulled up to a street vendor and hopped out and tried 3 different traditional fried breakfast foods. The guide was a fan of all of these so we split them all between us – starting the food sharing early, always good! The first was made from rice flour, vegetables, peanuts on top – I didn’t catch the rest! Really tasty, I enjoyed it a lot. The second was like a mini donut covered in sesame seeds, inside was yellow bean and coconut paste. Really delicious, slightly sweet but not too much. You can also get the same thing covered in sugar (both are shown in the picture) but Ms Monyca turned her nose up at the sugar covered ones and so I knew better than to question her judgement!

Third was another donut, this one ring shaped with palm sugar on the top – this wasn’t my favourite, it wasn’t bad, just a bit oily and very sweet – I surreptitiously binned the rest of it when the vendor wasn’t looking!

Back in the tuk tuk and I said what a nice first breakfast that had been. Oh no, says Ms Monyka, surprised. That wasn’t breakfast, that was just some snacks to try! We’ll head to breakfast now 😳. Thank goodness I didn’t eat anything before we left the hotel.

We got to BKK market, a huge indoor market that was full of every food stuff you can imagine – fruit and veg, meat, live fish, piles of rice and chillis and absolutely teeming with people (mainly housewives according to Ms M)

Turning a corner we found ourselves in a huge second hand clothing section (apparently all the Cambodian tik tokers go there for their clothes – although Ms Monyka does not watch Tik Tok you understand – although it wasn’t the last time she mentioned it…). Yet another corner and we were in beauty alley, with hairdressers and manicurists plying their trade out in the open market. Fascinating.

Everywhere you looked on the ground were wrapped sweets just strewn about – apparently every morning the stall holders put them on the ground to appease the spirits – when the spirits come they take the sweets and leave the business owners alone. Apparently all the kids know this and are forbidden to touch them – good on them, I can’t see that working on any kids I know 😂

I didn’t see a single other non Cambodian in the entire market, apparently there is another market in the city that all the tourists go to, it’s more organised and cleaner allegedly but this is more authentic – I’ll take authentic any day, it was so fun but you do stand out like a sore thumb – being white, blonde and taking pictures of anything that moves 😂

We stopped at a little stall in the middle of the market for breakfast 1 (1A maybe?!) This was a bowl of noodle soup with morning glory (a green leafy vegetable, behave…), shredded banana flower and a choice of meat or fish, of which I chose fish (sorry Martin!) It was really nice, the broth was really flavourful and you added all the condiments in – I chose a local Cambodian chilli sauce which the guide warned me sometimes only locals liked so I tested it first – I think it had some kind of dried or fermented fish in so it smelt a bit funky but it tasted good! There were also slices of something in the soup they called pate – I think it was a bit like a processed meat/fish – somewhere between a slice of crab stick and that billy bear liver sausage we used to get from the deli as kids! Was delicious. At this point I was also offered a drink so went for an iced coffee – SE Asia is the only place I like coffee as they make it super sweet with condensed milk and frankly I need the caffeine today!

After eating enough soup not to cause offence but hopefully leaving enough room for breakfast 2 (3!) we set off again. Each time we made a stop our tuk tuk would whizz off but the second we were done we would turn around and he was waiting there, a big smile on his face. Cracking service!

We headed off to the first street art stop – this was a quite a sad story, the land used to be really prosperous, full of guest houses and restaurants for tourists. Then the government sold it off 10 years ago to Chinese and Japanese investors – they offered everyone $5000 US dollars to move (not enough to buy anywhere else) and then filled the land with sub quality sand to start building – and then abandoned it. This has led to flooding across the city as it’s messed up the drainage system and thousands of families lost their homes and businesses for nothing.

There’s still a few people holding out living there but it’s really run down. The art here was quite political, there’s a group of women who are still campaigning to get the land back and much of the art is about that.

Back on the tuck tuck for 4 more stops to see various murals along the way – thank goodness for these tours, most of it was down dodgy looking alleyways, I’d never have ventured down them alone in a million years!

Off to breakfast 2 where I insisted I was brought a half portion – this was rice with pork, the most popular breakfast in Cambodia. It came with a clear broth and pickles. I have to say it was absolutely delicious. I’m not normally a pork eater but this had some kind of sweet marinade on and was so flavourful. Ms M had some local garlic and chilli sauce with hers which I said I would have. She made me try a tiny bit first which was a good shout as it almost took my head off!

We chatted about her university studies, she’s obviously extremely smart as she’s won scholarships to do work placements in 7 countries including the US in Texas. I asked her what she thought of it there – she considered briefly and then declared she thought the food portions were insane and “they put cheese on…everything!” I think that’s a fairly good summation of American cuisine don’t you! A fresh, cold coconut water finished off the meal and back into the tuk tuk.

I’d forgotten how much I love travelling around SE Asia in a tuk tuk, the culture shock is so great, your eyes could never get bored from all the amazing things you see as you lurch along in your little squished tin can, the breeze in your face and the sound and smells of the city all around you. Highlights I saw today was what looked like half a dozen monks trying to squish into a tuk tuk (I’m devastated we were going too fast for me to get a picture of this), people laying down across the top of their street stalls having a nap, and what I’m sure was a huge pagoda with a 10 foot bronze statue of a rabbit wearing glasses out of the front of it – to be honest, I was feeling a bit punch drunk with tiredness by that point so I’m going to check back with the guide tonight and see if I got that right!

Last stop was to a super fancy chocolate shop, it’s bean to bar Cambodian chocolate and the first of its kind in the country. I tried a few samples and it’s gorgeous, the least bitter dark chocolate I’ve ever tried. There was so many unusual flavours – salt and black pepper, galangal, cinnamon and dozens more. Ms M told me to choose my favourite and I got a bar to take away with me which was so sweet! I chose the salt and pepper as it’s really delicious and unusual but I’m quite concerned about carrying it around with me and it melting so I might have to give that away before I leave 😳

Back to the hotel to lay by the pool for a bit – the sun beds are actually in to the pool and you have to walk over a 6 inch wide ledge to get to them – I made it but it was extremely stressful, I’m not sure I’m brave enough to try it again tomorrow, I might just bite the bullet, get in and swim to them – less chance of injury/shame!

Had to go and have a nap at this point as I was running on fumes and have got another tour tonight! Was a good plan as I’ve just woken up and feel much better. It’s a street food tour tonight and they insist I come hungry – I’m going to insist from the outset of half portions of everything so I don’t die haha! Details of that to come later!

Hope everyone is well, wish you could all actually be here to experience along with me.

Lots of love always xxx