The market

Okay, I'm really proud of myself today. I went to the market - the open air market that is - where the locals shop. Open air isn't an accurate description though. It's situated in a square with stalls configured into a sort of serpentine arrangement with lots of cover overhead from the hot sun. They trade just about everything here. It's not a place where many Westerners come to shop for consumption - they go to the Western supermarkets. Not me, not today at least.

Fruits, veggies and meats, household goods, sewing shops, countless hairdressers, moto repair, DVD's and CD's, mobile phones, and lots of mini restaurants. You name it, you can buy it here. But no one speaks English and, quite frankly, much of the food hygiene is a bit scary for a Westerner to stomach. And yet I came here on a mission today: to shop like the locals and buy local food. After all, I am a new neighbor living just down the street.

So there were a lot of hand gestures and pointing to things. I do know numbers in Khmer so I can tell them how much of whatever I want: 200g of fresh coconut, a small handful of Kaffir lime leaves, two chicken breasts, a knot of fresh turmeric, some red and green chillies, limes, 100g of long green beans, etc. By the end of it all my backpack was full and I spent less than $7, a very good deal for what I got, but probably 100% markup because I have a white face.

I went home and prepared my dinner which was a Khmer curry dish I learned how to prepare when I was in Battambang in January. This includes pounding my own curry paste from fresh ingredients. I must say it came out just divine.

I'll return to the market again and again. The fear is now gone and the experience was worth it all. Check out the new pictures.