The Still Image

Having tried a few versions of rice porridge in Thailand (chok), Vietnam (cháo), and now in Cambodia (bobor), I decided to try my hand at it.

All descending from the Chinese mother recipe, congee, rice porridge (also known by the off-putting Dickensian word, gruel) in Asia is a comforting breakfast food primarily given to sick people. In Khmer Rouge-era Cambodia, rice was heavily rationed and so the people made it go further by turning it into a soup. Today's versions are more nutritious than these meager meals and typically include a host of additions to spice up the bland base.

My version was based on shiitake mushroom stock with wholegrain rice and pak choi. The whole grain means that the rice does not disintegrate into a starchy, gloopy soup. I floated half a boiled egg and served it with accompaniments of bean sprouts, fresh herbs, sliced ginger, dried chillies and fried tofu. Pretty good, but not up to the standard of Vitking's.

In the afternoon, we joined the regular Khmer lesson at the peace café. We arrived late but the lesson 'plan' is loose with no fixed end-point, and so it segues easily between language and culture tips to plans for tomorrow and beyond. Besides picking up a few phrases for our remaining days in Cambodia, our main purpose was to meet up to go to a photography exhibition.

The Angkor Photo festival is now in its tenth year and takes place each year in Siem Reap. We visited the opening of two special exhibitions at the McDermott gallery.

One of these comprised some beautiful photos of cityscapes by Gabriele Croppi. These black-and-white images have been precisely shot, using high contrast, to achieve an effect close to graphic design. They could be pen-and-ink illustrations. They contain large blocks of negative space - often swathes of black shadow - which are given a tactile dimension through the Hahnemühle cotton paper on which they are printed. The final result appeals to my aesthetic.

Following the exhibition opening, we moved to the FCC (whose Phnom Penh branch we visited while in the capital), where an outdoor slideshow of work by Asian photographers was being shown. The selection of photographs from 24 different artists was mostly excellent. Two in particular caught my attention.

Munem Wasif lives in Old Dhaka and has caught images of everyday life. His ability to intrigue the viewer is uncanny.  Each photo hides a story. A knife is held to a boy's throat by a group of other boys. He is smiling. Is he being threatened or shaved? A picture of a Bangladeshi street reveals a mass of overhead cables. Silhouetted at the top of the frame is a monkey making its way carefully on the urban vines. A photograph of ladies laughing. What's so funny? We want to share in the joke.

Another sequence of images by Ronny Sen brought to my attention a phenomenon of which I was completely unaware. In Jharia, India, an underground fire has raged in the city's coalmines for nearly a century. The longevity of this natural disaster has rendered it normal. People still live in the town. The collieries burned long before the current crop of residents were born and will probably continue to burn during their children's and grandchildren's lifetimes, as all efforts to extinguish the flames have proven ineffective.

Food and Friends

Among the selection of Khmer breakfasts, noodles feature both as soup and fried (mi cha, មី​ឆា).

This morning, I cooked us mi cha with fried tofu, beansprouts and an egg. Khmer breakfasts are traditionally substantial in order to see the workers through the morning's physical labour. We burned fewer calories than the average farmhand, as we passed a largely sedentary day.

In the evening, we had dinner outside with our next-door neighbour, her friend from Thailand, and the cat. Our neighbour cooked us a meal, like herself, from everywhere and nowhere in particular. Chunky carrots and ginger sautéed in olive oil until tender, omelette, and shirazi - a simple Persian salad of diced cucumber, tomato, and onion. Good food, good company and good weather meant that we sat out until late talking.

How Soon is Never?

At 3:30 this morning I was awake. Did I have a flight to catch? No. I had a sunrise to catch.

Our destination was Phnom Bakheng, the 9th century hilltop temple just south of Angkor Thom. This is a very popular spot for taking in the sunset, as it affords a view over Angkor Wat. Every day at dusk the temple is mobbed by hundreds, if not thousands, of tourists queuing for the ascent. So popular is it, that only 300 people are permitted on the upper terrace, for fear of structural collapse and injury.

At sunset, elephants can be hired to make the climb to the summit. However, these beasts of burden were still asleep as we arose this morning. The normal approach is to take a tuk-tuk to the base of the hill and walk up. Bucking the trend, our journey began on bicycle. Fortunately, the outside temperature at this time of the morning is still north of 20°C, so getting up is less of an endurance test than seeing a chilly British sunrise.

We had hired two White Bicycles the previous evening, which awaited us in the dark hours of the early morning. Sadly, only one of these had a dynamo-driven light, so I cycled clutching a torch to the handlebars. Having made the journey several times by daylight, the route was familiar to us, but the surrounding trees, harbouring amorphous shapes, whether real or imagined, took on a different character.

At this hour, we had the path to ourselves, save for a few market stallholders setting out for their pitch. As the Angkor complex does not open until 5:30AM, we breezed past the usual checkpoint on Charles de Gaulle, which was unmanned.

Phnom Bakheng

After some guesswork, we arrived at the inconspicuous entrance to Phnom Bakheng at 5:00AM. My torch illuminated a figure in the woods. It moved and approached us, lighting up a torch of its own. The figure revealed itself to be the Angkor security guard for the temple. He and others like him sit watch throughout the night, enforcing the opening hours.

We parked our bikes and joined the sentry at his post, perched on a wooden fence. With our torches extinguished, no other artificial light was visible, and we sat in companionable silence observing the blanket of stars above us and the sounds of nature in the surrounding jungle.

Not long after, a pair of cycle lamps approached. "Is this a good place for the sunrise?" asked an accented voice out of the blackness. We were joined by a Dutch couple, who had also made the journey (naturally) on two wheels. Unlike sunset, this end of the day is far less popular with visitors, and so the four of us made up the entire party of sun worshippers today.

Despite not rising until 6:10, by 5:30 the advancing sun had already brightened the sky considerably to a deep blue. Reaching the top of the hill, we groped for the staircase to ascend the temple walls. On top, we were rewarded with a largely uninterrupted view over the surrounding flat plains. As the blanket of night was drawn back across the land, it gradually revealed the distinctive form of Angkor Wat, whose grey silhouette popped out of the misty landscape like a layer of a diorama.

View of Angkor Wat from Phnom Bakheng

Photography was tricky in the half-light, and the flaming red sun was partially obscured by a bank of cloud on the horizon, but the atmosphere was magical. We made the descent shortly after being joined by a group of early-morning joggers clad in identical pink sweatshirts, and proceeded to a couple of temples with the aim of enjoying the peaceful atmosphere without the braying of tour groups.

Bayon

We made a brief stop at Angkor Thom's centrepiece, the magnificent Bayon, with its fifty towers, and two hundred smiling faces.

Ta Prohm

Arriving at one of our favourite temples, the overgrown Ta Prohm, we realised a fundamental truth of visiting Angkor: there is always a loud party of tourists arriving just as you get there. Fortunately, the maze-like temple allowed us to slip away amid the tall trees, which seem to have reached down their finger-like roots from the sky and taken hold of the stone walls.

In the grounds, we also came across a number of the tiniest frogs imaginable. At first we thought they were crickets or another small insect. They were camouflaged brown against the earth, so that the very smallest ones appeared as a speck of dirt. The above frog was one of the larger ones and even its weight was not sufficient to bend a blade of grass.

By the time we had finished inspecting frogs, it was later than we realised, given the early start, and so we doubled back after revisiting a couple more temples. Outside Angkor Wat's western gate is the Angkor Café. This caters predominantly to the large tour groups we had been trying to avoid. Fortunately, as they were still marauding about the temple complexes, the café was empty. Less fortunately, the tour operators had booked out the entire space for their customers. We joined the waiter in laughing at the irony of having to seat us outside the completely empty restaurant and ordered brunch.

As usual, vegetarian options were more prevalent in the western section of the menu than in the Khmer food, so we gave in and had a tofu burger.

Tempted by the menu of ice cream confections, we attempted to order dessert and fell foul of a cultural misunderstanding. "We only have vanilla and chocolate", said the waiter. I had my heart set on a decadent sundae involving peanut-flavour ice cream and a chocolate brownie. I expressed my dismay. "We pick the ice cream up from the market every day at 11am". I observed that it was already approaching midday and that we would be happy to wait a little while fora greater range of flavours. The waiter looked confused and a little embarrassed. "I think maybe it is running late. It will probably be a long time for you". I was nonplussed. Was he trying to save us from a wait of indeterminate length, or was he politely implying that no matter how long we stuck around, the ice cream would never arrive. Unable to discern the truth, we intimated that we would stay awhile and try our luck. However, inwardly we puzzled. When would the ice cream arrive? Never?

We have had a few such confusing exchanges while travelling. Some we have put down to a lack on both sides to find and understand the right words to adequately explain a nuanced problem. On other occasions, we have realised that procrastination and, in some cases, prevarication are methods used to avoid giving an outright negative answer and to save face.

Confusion is not always the result of a lack of understanding but can be feigned in order to save a lengthier explanation and to avoid any confrontation that might result. Most of the time, however, we often expect a direct response and fail to take the hint. If there is no ice cream, just let us know. If you don't know how to operate the credit card machine or fill out the correct paperwork, please tell us. For us there is no shame in admitting to a shortcoming. We won't make a fuss. But some tourists might make a scene and for some cultures it seems to be more important to smile and maintain a happy relationship than necessarily to satisfy the customer's every whim.

Happily, we were proven wrong in our presumption on this occasion. The waiter came to tell us the good news and we indulged in dessert, which was predictably delicious. The taste was tinged a little with guilt at our suspicions and, as we ate, we realised that we are equally apt to create confusion through politeness and obfuscation.

A weekend trip we had planned to join out to Preah Vihear - a temple near the Thai border whose ownership is hotly, and sometimes violently, contested - fell through at the last moment. Several members of the group had decided to switch to a different tour operator, making the shared cost for the remaining individuals too high and the trip unviable. However, the original trip wasn't being run by a tour operator, but by our Khmer teacher, who organises transport and accommodation more as an outing among friends, rather than as a business. Determined to make the plan successful, she suggested that we could go by motorbike instead of bus. We were less than sure about making the 500km round trip by bike, and told her so. However, we hedged and caveated our response, using "I think..." and "perhaps" to soften the blow of our refusal. Despite speaking and understanding English to a high level, this indirection muddied the message for our teacher. Did we want to go or not? In the end, we discovered that brevity is the brother of clarity. But the delivery seemed too curt to our sensitive British ears. We wanted to prevaricate, to avoid a negative. The use of language implies a lot about a culture but it seems that the approach between East and West is differently similar enough to lay a minefield for the unwary.

Having gorged ourselves at brunch, we dined lightly in the evening on a rice pilaf using aubergine, pomegranate, cucumber, tomatoes, and a handfuls of fresh mint and basil.

Our Khmer teacher realised that talking face to face would lessen the gap of misunderstanding, and so she joined us in the evening. We shared a beer and our mutual disappointment that the trip would not go ahead. Instead we made plans of our own for Monday that could not be stymied by others' lack of commitment.

Back to the Circus

I awoke this morning feeling a little off colour. There was nothing particular that I could put my finger on, but I had a certain lethargy that wouldn't leave me. I had no desire to go to the market, so breakfast had to be scavenged from our rapidly emptying cupboards. Without staples such as cereal or bread for toasting, assembling a meal was not an easy task.

Having recently seen the laborious manufacture of rice noodles in Battambang, I decided to reprise my attempt at veggie num banh chok. Out came the pestle and mortar, with which I pounded the paste of lemongrass, lime leaves, garlic, and turmeric root. The preparation was therapy and the result a comforting bowl of noodles in a yellowy coconut soup with a fresh topping of grated papaya.

A recuperative day was called for, so K and I took a break from doing, in favour of being.

As the shadows grew long, we hatched a plan to blow off the cobwebs and revisit the Phare circus that we had so enjoyed last week. Being narrative-driven, we could experience a new performance this week.

Scraping together our impoverished ingredients, I improvised a spinach, pumpkin and tofu curry in a peanut/coconut sauce with half a boiled egg for dinner. The chilli spice hit the spot and gave us the energy we needed to leave the apartment.

This evening's performance was called Sokha, the name of a girl who lived through the Khmer Rouge regime. Although a fictional character, the basis of the story is drawn from the life of one of the founders of Phare Ponleu Selpak.

Owing to the subject matter, I anticipated a more sombre tone in comparison to the joviality and outright clowning in the previous performance (Chills). Indeed, the performers were initially dressed in austere black and white. An old lady, Sokha, entered the stage and, whirling and shedding the signs of age, brought us back to the time of her youth. The atmosphere was joyful and energetic, the classmates turning impressive tricks in their youthful high spirits. However, the tale took a grim turn with the Khmer Rouge's coup and reign of terror.

The show combines acrobatics, dancing, live painting and percussion to portray the horrors perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge torturers, the performers' faces hidden behind frightening masks. Having survived the ordeal, Sokha is plagued by her memories. As she sleeps, her body is wracked by tortuous nightmares and she enters a macabre dance with the spectre of her fears.

Having conquered her own anxieties in a stunning and acrobatic feat, Sokha helps others to come to terms with their past. In one of the most emotionally charged scenes of juggling(!) ever imagined, black juggling balls serve as a metaphor for a young man's deep-seated trauma caused by the concentration camps. It was a brave choreographer that pitched this particular scene, but it, as the whole, is effective and moving. Despite its weight, the story manages to be hopeful and uplifting, and was a real tonic.

Coconut Lyly

The breakfast menu at our guesthouse seems to cater first and foremost to the appetite of the largely French-speaking guests, offering baguette and 'confiture', omelette and 'cheese', by which is meant 'la vache qui rit' dairy triangles. Actually the omelette and bread are rather good and were a step up on yesterday's pancakes.

Having checked out, we were met by the chef of a cooking school, with whom we had booked a lesson this morning. Lyly, a young Cambodian, is fresh out of Paul Dubrule's 'Ecole d'Hôtellerie et de Tourisme' in Siem Reap. Having done stints in hotels in Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, Lyly opened the Coconut House restaurant in his home town of Battambang, which he runs with his parents.

Our first job was to head to the market to pick up a few fresh items. While Lyly had already laid in many of the required ingredients for the four recipes we would be preparing, he was keen to show us the vegetables at Phsar Nat. Not being entirely 'green' when it comes to exotic produce, Lyly showed us some vegetables with which we were already familiar and some we didn't know. We can now distinguish morning glory for frying (green) and that intended for soups (reddish purple). He also gave us some unexpected warnings about frightening food combinations that we should avoid lest they cause a serious reaction. On the list of potentially fatal pairings are: durian and cola (no chance of that), mangosteen and sugar, black jelly and honey. Suitably chastened by these casual warnings, we collected the lemongrass and freshly squeezed coconut milk and returned to the restaurant.

It was a personal lesson with the chef, as only K and I had signed up for the morning session. Our first of four recipes, working in reverse order, was Lyly's signature dessert, a coconut panacotta. This was simple enough, with the chef putting in most of the work blending coconut flesh with fresh milk. I stirred the heated mixture until the sugar melted and K looked decorative. The mixture was poured into ramekins and went into the fridge to set.

Lyly accommodated our vegetarianism well and substituted ingredients in his usual recipes. Next up was that well-loved Khmer specialty, amok. With oyster mushrooms taking the place of the fish, we did most of the work on this dish. Excitingly, we took the traditional route of steaming the curry in banana leaf baskets. Lyly showed us how to fold these and pin them with cocktail sticks. While mine looked the part, filling it with the mixture revealed a structural weakness and it had to be replaced by the exemplar.

As to be expected, the equipment in the kitchen was top-knotch and we enjoyed razor-sharp knives and a heavy stone pestle and mortar with which to slice and pound the tough lemongrass into submission. The ingredients for the amok paste have become second-nature by now, but this included the lesser-spotted fingerroot (k'cheay) alongside the turmeric root, dried red chillies (for colour and flavour, not heat), kaffir lime leaves, shallots, garlic, and galangal ("never ginger!"). Lyly was exacting on the consistency of the paste, so we pounded until our arms ached and we feared the mortar would crack. We mixed the paste, coconut milk, palm sugar, and torn oyster mushrooms without heating and filled the banana leaf baskets. These were popped into a steamer for later. Beyond the key ingredients, Lyly told us that amok can be prepared in different ways, some variations containing eggs, others using peanuts (which make it heavier and more filling), some steamed, and others cooked solely in the pan (steaming takes longer and uses more gas, so it depends on the restaurant's commitment to quality cuisine).

Next on the menu was tofu lok lak. Typically prepared using beef, this dish is very similar to the Vietnamese bò lúc lắc (known as 'shaking beef'), where the name apparently derives from the cube-shaped pieces of beef. Accordingly, we fry and cube the tofu and stir it in a mix of tomato sauce, (not strictly vegetarian) oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, pepper, and garlic. Having fried this until sticky and pungent, it was served on a bed of lettuce, green tomatoes and thinly sliced onions, a lime-and-pepper dipping sauce, and topped with a fried egg.

The final dish was the appetiser, spring rolls - the fried, not fresh kind. These we had attempted in Vietnam, and the process was much the same here. We grated carrot and taro, creating a gluey substance that replaces egg as a binding agent, and sliced spring onion. Seasoning the mixture, we rolled small amounts into rice paper - the kind for frying, as the fresh paper contains water that causes much spluttering when in contact with hot oil.

Having 'plated up' under the watchful eye of Lyly, the feast was assembled. We tucked in amid much slurping and smacking of lips. The spring rolls, fresh from the fryer, were crispy and toothsome. The amok was light and delicate, while the lok lak was powerfully rich and peppery. Finishing off with Lyly's sweet creation, we rolled happily onto the bus back to Siem Reap.

Lyly's kitchen is spotlessly hygienic ("a clean chopping board helps me think"). He is meticulous in his preparation, enthusiastic and detailed in his explanation. From him, we not only learned Khmer recipes, but also gained fundamental chef skills and now know our chiffonade from our julienne. He speaks excellent English (also learnt at l'Ecole), helping him to convey his love for food, which is infectious.

On the bus, I fell into a gluttonous stupour and awoke only as we pulled into the bus station. Vowing not to eat again, we still managed to find room to snack on a few nibbles later in the evening. I dread to imagine what Lyly would think.

Putting the Bat into Battambang

After a very un-Khmer breakfast of pancakes (the small, fat style) and bananas with maple syrup, Mr Nicky met us for a day in his tuk-tuk touring the sights of the countryside surrounding Battambang.

We started to the north, which is home to many small cottage industries. Along the route, we passed clusters of houses where the families make the same thing. One area might be dedicated to rice paper, while in another there might be a string of noodle-makers. Whether the families share equipment or know-how, I'm not sure, but it's possible that they simply start in the trade they see their neighbours plying.

We stopped at a house where a couple were agreeable to our taking a look at their set-up. As we arrived, bamboo lattice frames were propped up in the front yard covered in discs of rice paper drying in the hot sun. A man was busy stoking the fire fuelled by a hopper of rice husks, providing steam to a piece of stretched cloth over which a lady spread a smooth rice paste. Once steamed, which took only a few moments, the round rice paper was transferred onto a piece of tubing, and rolled onto the bamboo lattice for drying.

While we observed the process, the couple filled several of these frames. The paper is used by families and restaurants alike for fresh spring rolls. They have a rustic irregularity when compared to the rice wrappers of Vietnam, which are factory made. There are no such factories in Cambodia and so packets of perfectly circular 'bánh trang' are imported.

A short way along the road brought us to a cluster of houses, outside of which thin layers of banana were drying on narrow bamboo shelves. Inside one such house, a husband and wife team had a similarly industrious collaboration, in which the wife sliced razor-thin slivers of banana by hand with a knife, layering them onto wooden trays. These were carried away by the husband to dry, creating a semi-sweet banana 'paper' loved by children.

The hardest and hottest work had to be in making rice noodles used in the dish num banh chok. Having soaked and puréed the rice, two boys fed the resulting white dough into a mould. Using both their weight, they pressed the paste through the holes using a long wooden lever, the extruded noodles cooking instantly as they came into contact with the boiling water below.

The noodles were washed and layered into an attractive pattern on banana leaves by two ladies. The noodles are sold fresh and do not last longer than a day. The team works tirelessly every day to provide noodles for the community.

Along our route, we also passed the fish market, where they make stinky prahok (fermented fish paste). Unlike the sweet smell of bananas or the attractively patterned layers of rice noodles, the putrid tubs of fermenting fish matter being forked over by one of the workers didn't inspire me to eat the final result. Two little girls sat on the floor, expertly chopping the heads from the fish with sharp cleavers. This they do between morning and afternoon lessons at school and seemed well practised. We moved on rather more quickly from this place.

Ek Phnom is an 11th century temple that is replete with 'Danger' signs. Unlike the temples of Angkor, little or no restoration work has been undertaken here and so we clambered into the site over fallen stones and under the two halves of a cracked lintel leaning on each other. Inside, the sandstone blocks are piled precariously, tipping over at alarming angles with only the weight of the stones pressing down to hold them together. The whole structure gives the impression of a giant game of Jenga, in which removing a single block might reduce the temple to a dusty pile of rubble. It was a tense but exhilarating investigation of the inner sanctum.

Heading south of Battambang, we reached the bamboo train line. Once used to shuttle goods between towns faster than by ox and cart, but rendered redundant by the use of motorbikes and trucks, a section of the line remains open for tourists only.

The 'train' comprises a bamboo frame only slightly sturdier than those we had seen used for drying food products this morning, two axles, and a motor that drives the rear axle. We sat cross-legged, each on a cushion, as though on a flying carpet. The driver started the motor and climbed on the back. Accelerating, we were soon at top speed and the countryside whipped by, a shuddering jolt going through us as we went over the joins in the track that had been warped in the hot sun. The train offered nothing to stop us falling off as we flew over bridges and through level crossings.

Weight-lifting Battambang style

It wasn't long before we met opposing traffic on the single track. In a complicated dance of yielding priority, the drivers of the two trains carefully dismantled one of the vehicles to allow the other to pass. Having switched places, we continued our journey on the newly assembled train. At the far end, there was just time for a cooling coconut before the return journey.

Taking the road west to Phnom Sampeu, we visited two different kinds of caves, and made the climb to the summit, where an impressive monastery is situated.

After a late lunch of fried 'Chinese' rice noodles (the wide flat kind) at the foot of the hill, we set off up the incline.

Some way up the side of the hill, there is an opening known as the 'killing cave'. Looking up from inside the cave, one can see a skylight, through which enemies of the Khmer Rouge regime were thrown, having been butchered and bludgeoned to death. Alongside the recovered bones of the deceased is a large reclining Buddha, built to honour the victims.

Phnom Sampeu is an aberration in the otherwise largely flat plains surrounding Battambang, and affords a wonderful view over the patchwork green fields dotted with trees in one direction and out towards the border with Thailand in the other. Our guide had told us to beware of naughty monkeys that sometimes turned violent. His advice was to carry a stick and wave it in front of us, which K duly did, but the macaques were mostly benign.

Descending once more to ground level, as the sun began its own descent, we were just in time for a stunning display at the 'bat cave'.

In a cave on a largely inaccessible side of the hill, a huge number of bats sleep during the daytime hours and, around dusk each day, make a spectacular exit.

As we gaped skywards, uncountable numbers of the creatures streamed forth from the rock, silhouetted against the rapidly darkening blue sky. The exit lasted tens of minutes, indicating that they must number in the millions. Not flocking like starlings, rather snaking and twisting out into the distance like a dragon, the bats venture miles to feast on insects before returning.

We followed the trail of bats in the tuk-tuk, like storm chasers. The sun was setting, painting the sky pink, purple and orange. The bats rose from the top of Phnom Sampeu like a plume of smoke and gradually dissipated.

Back in Battambang, we had dinner at Ambrosia Café. This offered vegetarian versions of Khmer and Western food, so we ordered tofu lok lak and salt and pepper tofu. The latter was properly peppery, while the former was served in a rich tomato sauce with a garlicky dipping sauce.

Tuesday nights are classic movie nights at Ambrosia, which meant that we also enjoyed a showing of Raging Bull while we ate. 'Enjoy' might not be the operative word, as it is a harrowing tale of a man who had it all and destroyed it through violence.

Battambang by Bus

A change of scene today, as we caught an inter-provincial bus (Capitol) to the town of Battambang.

We picked up some bread and pastries from Apsara bakery, including a small, dense round pastry containing an identifiable fruity paste of marzipan-like consistency and colour with a bright orange centre like a candied chestnut. Breakfast surprise!

On the bus were a mix of Cambodians and foreigners. The bus has to travel up country to Krong Serei Saophoan and then double back around the other side of the great lake. It's a journey of just over 300km and took us three-and-a-half hours.

As we stopped briefly, we tried to sate our travelling munchies. I selected a healthy and delicious persimmon, expertly peeled by the seller, while K went for a salty snack of MSG-laden Pringles-alikes. Snacks like this are becoming more common in Cambodia and can be found alongside the more traditional fried insects and cockles, rice-based 'cakes', and roasted bananas, but are much more expensive (this tube of formed potato wafers was imported from Malaysia, while the crickets and spiders are local). I pointed out that crisps here are a luxury snack and cost as much as a dish in a restaurant. Such prices should act as a deterrent to eating junk food and towards better nourishment - imagine that spending on a bag of crisps meant being unable to afford to eat a proper meal - but with the luxury of money, our choices often depend more on convenience than cost.

Arriving at the bus station just outside of the town, we were met by the most enormous scrum of tuk-tuk drivers, scrambling at the windows of the bus for our custom. The supply of drivers outstripped the passengers' demand for transportation and some, like us, had already arranged for a pick-up, leaving the rest without a fare.

We had called 'Mr Nicky' a few days ago to organise a tour and he kindly met us at the station to take us to our guesthouse. He reinforced the impression we had about the level of competition in the tuk-tuk business. Mr Nicky is educated, speaks good English, and has managed to differentiate himself from the crowd.

Arriving at our charming little guesthouse, just west of the town centre, we checked in and were shown our room with a magnificently redundant extra double bed. We hopped almost immediately on the bikes provided to make the most of the few remaining hours of daylight. It was a straight run into town, down a dirt path passing the small burial mounds of a Chinese grave.

Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city, with a population of 250,000 to Siem Reap's 175,000. However, it has a small, sleepy feel to it that I had expected of Siem Reap. Despite being on the 'outskirts' of town, we reached the river in under ten minutes and cycled happily along its edge.

Crossing over the Old Stone Bridge, we came to the east side of town, which is home to a number of monasteries and temples (wats). We stopped at one of the prettier temples (Wat Sangker) and spoke to a young monk there. He said that he is studying agriculture at the local University, but plans to study English in order to become a teacher.

Wat Sangker entrance gate

Battambang is easily traversed by bicycle and we circumnavigated the river, taking in the monasteries, some of which ape the style of Angkor, and the market. Coming from Siem Reap, the traffic seemed a lot less crazy and so we cycled on to a Chinese vegetarian restaurant.

The food at the family-run Te Kuch La (formerly Mercy House) was excellent. K and I both had the oddly Japanese-named 'teppanyaki' (a sizzling hotplate, like the one I had yesterday) - K's with noodles and mine with rice. A delicious slice of soy steak, a fried egg, and some umami-rich shiitake mushrooms danced on the scalding slab of iron in a rich and savoury sauce. At the same cost as a tube of potato snacks, it was by far the better option.

Outside, darkness had descended rapidly and early, as it does here. We cycled the short distance back to the guesthouse along the path past the Chinese graveyard, lit only by a thin sliver of the waxing moon and the occasional dancing firefly.

Running Amok (Again)

With all the new experiences that travelling to SE Asia has offered, I have been guilty of not indulging some old ones. I hadn't honestly expected Cambodia to offer much in the way of aikido classes, but it recently came to my attention that there are three dojos in Siem Reap run by a Japanese instructor who shares his time between here and Battambang.

As part of the CAA, Shinuchi-sensei runs a class at the local university. I hauled myself out of bed on a Sunday morning and made my way to the dojo. In a small, un-air-conditioned room on the top floor of the building, we lay out the mats and began training.

The class was small - only four people including the instructor and me. Mori Shinuchi-sensei took the class and led us through a light warm-up, by the end of which I was already soaked with sweat. Training here is similar to being in the humidity of Japan, which is apt. I mused that perhaps we should attempt to reproduce this environment in colder climates - as aficionados of bikram yoga have recreated the swelter of India - in order to acclimatise ourselves. Training with Shinuchi-sensei was a boon for practising lightness, softness and centring - the fundamentals of aikido - as he has mastered these elements.

After training, I met K next door at the conveniently situated Vitking House vegetarian restaurant for some breakfast. K had the Asian breakfast staple of rice porridge (babar or bobor, បបរ), which came with a number of additions to spice up the bland soupy base. The tastiest of the condiments was a sweet fermented soya bean paste (sieng phaem or seang pa-em, សៀងផ្អែម, where sieng means soya bean and phaem is sweet). This is created by frying the fermented beans with sugar. I had Chinese noodles with mushrooms, which arrived sizzling on a hotplate. Both were delicious.

I repaired to The Hive café for a slightly underwhelming fruit smoothie (papaya doesn't really taste of much) while K had her hair cut. She went to a salon that helps women who have been victims of the sex trafficking trade and trains them in hairdressing.

For the evening, I had planned to try my hand at the quintessential Khmer dish, amok. Typically prepared with fish (amok trei/trey), we have had a couple of tofu versions so far, which were both quite different. The key ingredients are the kroeung (spice paste), amok leaves, and coconut milk. Besides these, the texture can vary from a creamy, soupy curry to a steamed mousse-like consistency.

I wanted to try steaming the amok like a rich custard (a bit like the Japanese savoury chawan-mushi). Starting with the kroeung, I tried to bash the lemongrass, turmeric root,  lime leaves, galangal and chillies into a paste using the pestle and mortar. We had done this at a cooking class a couple of weeks ago, but with a mortar three times the size, it still too four people about twenty minutes of pulverising to reach the desired consistency.

After what seemed like hours - and a strong desire to reach for a jar of 'lazy boy' pre-minced lemongrass - I satisfied myself that the flavours had been beaten out of the fibrous ingredients. Pounding a handful of peanuts into the mix, I fried the kroeung until aromatic, added shredded amok leaves, green bell pepper, soft tofu and a couple of eggs, topping up the mixture with coconut milk. Steaming produced a soft set custard-like consistency that I was aiming for and, served with a bowlful of 'red' (wholegrain) rice, it wasn't a bad first stab at this Khmer classic.