Sunday 15 January 2012

The Trip - Part I


Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and a fabulous break.

We landed back this morning after 3½ weeks in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Malaysia. It was an amazing trip, but rather than bore you senseless with the whole thing now, I thought I might do a small series.

Liking as always to get the most of time off, we headed off on the Wednesday before Christmas that turned out to be the second last day of school and our work 1970s Christmas party (damn – never mind, clearly didn’t know that when I booked, because I would have known all the words to all the songs and been able to show off and show how old I am!). We had a 1.30am flight and were all so exhausted that when we got on, we all fell asleep. Ideal because god love Air Asia for being so cheap but you get nothing on board, including leg room. Exhaustion is a pretty good strategy. 

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur and desperate to go to loo, I noticed the only available cubicle was a squat toilet. “I’ll just whizz in there,” I thought – and promptly whizzed on my boot. I'm out of practice.
Not the actual airport loo, (this one has its own story) but it looks just like it!


A night in KL then off to Phenom Phenh where I discover you do pronounce the ‘P’ on Phenom. We head straight to the local market and take in all the aromas and sight – skinned frogs, fried bugs, lumps of meat, whole plucked chickens and strange vegetables and plenty of brightly coloured plastic bits from toys to kitchen utensils and other junk. It's hot so we settle down at a stall for some rice paper rolls loaded with Asian mint and tiny whole shrimp, BBQ chicken and pork straight off the tiny charcoal grill served on bamboo sticks – and beer. The holiday is starting well!

We find a restaurant I’ve heard about and make a booking for the next night – Christmas Eve. It’s a place where a dedicated NGO train street kids in the art of hospitality and then get them jobs in restaurants around town. They also have great art done by the kids – curiously none of which is for sale. To whet our appetite, the incredibly helpful manager brings out one of their renowned delicacies, yet to be cooked obviously. We can hardly wait...

Note tarantulas have 10 legs...go figure.

3 comments:

Mother of a Man Child said...

You are game all eating from a street stall early in the holiday!! You can keep deep fried tarantula - no thanks.
As for the loo - when you gotta go you gotta go. When in Rome....... :)

Katrina Jack said...

You never cease to amaze me....fancy missing the Christmas party ;-)

Motherwhoworks said...

I know - bad planning. Never mind.... MWWx

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