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Notice this woman on a motorcycle at 6:00 AM. She’s not wearing a helmet but she’s wearing some…what are they?….on her hands. They’re not gloves but Cambodian women will go to great lengths to cover any exposed skin so that it isn’t darkened by the sun.
Just about anything you want to eat is available on the street–without even getting off your moto–and people are queued up to get it.
The night time street stalls for food offer a variety of selections. This one sells roast duck.
A large percentage of the Cambodian population gets supper from the street, partly because it’s cheap and convenient, and partly because it avoids lighting a charcoal fire in a clay pot which is the way most people cook at home. Here this food stall offers grilled fish.
When you’re hankering for steamed snails in the U.S., you probably have to look around a bit before you find a shop that sells them. Not so in Phnom Penh! And at this shop, you don’t even have to get off your motorcycle to buy them!
These monks making their begging rounds in Phnom Penh may be wearing outfits in a style that hasn’t changed for the last 2,500 years but they have their iced coffee and bubble teas!
Cambodians, especially the deaf youth, live a simple lifestyle that is closely linked to nature. Today there was excitement in the morning break when the students discovered two small green mangoes on a tree on our property–unfortunately too far out of reach for even our mango-picker poles.
I love mangoes but the idea of eating a hard, unripe green mango is yechy for me. Cambodians put some sort of salt or spices or something on the green mangoes and think it’s heavenly.
Today King Sihomani attended the annual royal plowing ceremony in Kampong Speu Province. The ceremony, held at the beginning of the rainy season, is to predict the fortunes of various agricultural crops in Cambodia.
First two oxen make three plowing trips across the designated field, attended by royal officials.
Then the oxen were led to seven platters with various foods, to see which they would choose. Today the oxen favored rice, corn, and soybeans indicating to the officials that those crops will be bountiful this year. The other offerings placed before the oxen were sesame, grass, water, and wine.
[Now you know! If you want to invest in Cambodian soybean futures, now is the time!]
[Photos are from the Khmer Times.]
I don’t like to cook–and don’t even have a stove in my house, just a microwave. Cambodia has many of these food stalls–simple shops set up on the street where a woman or a family cooks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or more big pots of what the Cambodians call “food,” i.e., something to be eaten with rice which in Cambodian culture is NOT food.
Once every week or so, I go to a food stall near my house and lift the lids of the six pots there to see what has been prepared. I look for things I might like and also look for the chopped red chilies in a pot. Those pots I REALLY avoid.
I tell the cook I want enough food for four people and give her a plastic box to put it in and then I ask for enough rice for four people and give another plastic box for that. Then I go home and each night of the week I eat the same thing fired up in the microwave. Supper for five nights costs me $6.25.
Ms. Miwako Fujiwara is a professional pianist, composer, and musical organizer, and last weekend she presented her 12th charity concert at the Sofitel Hotel.
The theme for this concert was Europe Day and each of the selections came from one of the countries of the European Union.
Miwako always invites the staff of DDP to attend the concerts and usually some of our deaf staff are part of our group. They don’t always receive and appreciate the full musical experience but they enjoy meeting others and here they were enjoying some croissants and pastries at the break.