Or in this case pork (cause the beef didn’t look good enough at the markets apparently). I took the first photo to prove that I dabbled with some green chilli in mine, a lot less than others but baby steps are being taken here in Asia. Morning glory (a vegetable here?), chilli basil (didn’t know this existed till today) marinating the pork in sugar, fish sauces, and soy sauces and cooking it all up with garlic, oil, water and the paste made for the last dish! I was so full from my first curry and wasn’t expecting this much food for 10 dollars but it was fantastic! I did this class with about 8 others, and met some awesome people (mainly volunteers from the Battambang province as well as an under water photographer working in Thailand). I’m so glad that I finally got to do a cooking class, it was so much fun and we got a cook book full of Asian delights as a souvenir which was perfect. Battambang as it turns out was a culinary experience but I’m a-okay with that!

Cooking all the ingredients, it was imminently obvious the difference the fresh coconut milk made. Letting all the ingredients simmer, and once done pushing them all up on the spatula as to drain the oils made from purely the fish and coconut milk, no oil required for cooking… And it was absolutely delicious.

I made my own coconut milk today which was such a cool experience. Using fresh grated coconut inside this material sack, dipping it in the water and ringing out the excess. It was the coolest experience. Combining this with bamboo shoots, beans, straw mushrooms, eggplant, amok (very, very smelly fish that Cambodia is known for) as well as a tiny bit of shrimp paste we took our fresh ingredients over to the woks.

Using well and truly the sharpest knives I’ve ever laid my hands on we got taught how to cut all the spices. Lemon grass, chilli, 14 (!) cloves of garlic, Ginza (like ginger), kaffir lime and salt. Grinding these all together to may a paste (the chillies were dried out with a little oil helping to make it paste like)

I paid $10 to do a cooking class at one of the city’s best Khmer restaurants this morning. We were taken to the markets to collect our ingredients. After giving up a vegetarian streak anticipating Asia and its edible animal forms and market “delights” but also cultural cuisines and I felt as though the act of being able to pick and choose what we emit from our diets is a very westernised and fortunate thing (not that it’s makes it any more moral) I just didn’t want to turn down local offerings of foods that are luxuries for them (especially living with a family for a month), or miss out on cultural experiences. That said, this market was enough to almost immediately change this back very quickly. At least you knew the fish was fresh, cause they were still squirming about when the Cambodia lades would grab them and chop their heads off in full view of the customers. Fried bats, turtles, snake fish, pigs head, you name it, it was there. We collected our vegetables (Cambodia has the best mushrooms I’ve ever eaten and the strangest looking), coconut and spices for our chosen dishes and head back to the restaurant.
and

The second largest city in Cambodia, I loved this a lot more than the other cities I had visited (although by the end I was missing and longing for Pursat again). A huge river runs down the middle of the city with long walking paths and lush open park type spaces running the entire length of the river making the wall home rather enjoyable. Every morning at 6am I’d wake to the sound of techno Asian music blasting as the locals get their aerobics in and every evening at 5pm their is an abundance of aerobic and martial artists, children with balloons and sugar cane juice stalls through out the stretch of parkland.

On my first night in Battambang I ate dinner at this Cambodia noodle house, Lan chorv Khorko Miteanh. This man hand made the noodles on order for each of the meals. Here is “Chinese noodle soup with beef” as suggested by one of the Cambodian boys (there was intestine soup on the menu, which definitely did not take my fancy). I was the only westerner here, which was cool I thought.

Please click or copy and past the link below to see the photo of me riding on the back of a bike, and vote for it in the IVHQ monthly photo competition awards! http://www.volunteerhq.org/volunteer-photo-competition?nid=85703

Thank you

Heaven after almost 3 weeks of 30+ degree weather and no where to swim.