I arrived in Cambodia yesterday from Vientiane, the capital of Laos. The last night in Vientiane, a handful of us went to a local bar by our hotel. Let's just say it was an interesting night indeed. I''m just glad no one ended up in jail haha.
After checking into our hotel, we took the bus out to a former prison called S-21 which stood for security station area 21. For some reason, no one likes calling this facility a prison. Think of it as a concentration camp of the late 1970s. During the second half of that decade, the communist party overthrew the monarchy in place at that time. Pol Pot was the leader of the party. The nut case thought the best thing for the country was to kick everyone out of the major cities and send them to the fields to farm rice. Those who opposed him automatically were sent to prison and/or executed. He gathered up all the intellectuals, politicians, students, and anyone else that could question his actions and sent them to S-21. Here, he would have these poor people tortured for a few weeks before sending them to the killing fields to be executed. He also executed family members including women and children of those in prison. This included babies that were killed by bashing them against trees or throwing them up in the air and shooting them like clay targets. The photographs I saw at the prison were gruesome and would be hard to stomach for a lot of people.
Our second stop was the killing fields. I wasn't sure what I expected to see. What I saw made my jaw drop. There are dozens of mass graves that have been excavated in the location I was taken to. Over 3 million people were murdered in a period of 4 years. That was over 1/3 of the population of Cambodia. Even to this day, pieces of clothing and bone fragments can be found throughout the area. The killing field I was in had an estimated 17,000 corpses at one point. A monument has been built in this field which houses hundreds of skulls of the victims. It's hard to believe how humans can be so cruel to each other and have no regard for other people's lives.
On a lighter note, one of my inspirations for this trip came from a show called Bizzare Foods with Andrew Zimmerman on the Travel Channel. Back in March, I was up in Seattle to go catch an Angels Mariners game. I was in my hotel the night before the game and just happened to have it on the Travel Channel. Andrew Zimmerman hosted a show from Cambodia. The special treat he had there was tarantula. At first I was a little grossed out but then I started thinking...wouldn't it be great to try tarantula first hand in Cambodia? Well I'm glad to say I tried it last night.
My tour group and I went to a nice Cambodian restaurant not too far from our hotel. We took the infamous tuk tuks that are available all over Asia. Think of them as motorcycles with a trailer attached to them weaving in and out of traffic with no regard to safety. When we entered the restaurant, my stomach started getting a little queasy about eating a tarantula. I told myself I needed to do this and was going to eat one regardless of how I felt. On the menu, tarantulas were listed as an appetizer. I placed the order and had a plate of 3 tarantulas brought over. They weren't as big as I thought they would be but they were still tarantulas none the less. They were prepared fried but still whole, still looking like they could move around. So I was the first to pick up one from the plate, I looked at it for a few moments and took a bite out of the legs. To my surprise, the legs were quite tasty. They reminded me a bit of the crunchy part of a deep fried chicken. The lime pepper dipping sauce that came with it added to the flavor. The other people in my group were grossed out but curious. A few of them decided to partake and tried a few legs. They seemed to enjoy it as well. I broke the tarantula in half and held onto the abdomen. I remember Andrew Zimmerman saying the abdomen was quite tasty and if you were lucky, perhaps there would be an egg sack to crunch on. I popped the abdomen into my mouth and started biting down. It wasn't as tasty as I thought it would be. It tasted very similar to chicken liver. The rest of the meal was very good. We ate family style trying all sorts of things such as prawns, beef, and chicken mixed with different sauces. Based on that experience, I would have to rank Cambodian food second to Thai food.
This morning I'm off to Siem Riep to check out Ankor Wat!
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