For years, the Cambodian city of Siem Reap lived in the shadow of Angkor Wat, one of the world’s most marvellous architectural achievements. The gateway city to Angkor Wat grew rapidly from the tourism revenue generated by the temples. Its streets are now populated by mototaxi drivers whose modus operandi involves three key words — taxi, massage, girls.
A weeklong entry into Angkor Wat will set you back by a good $67. The entry revenue from Angkor Wat alone can bump up Cambodia’s GDP a few notches but the fact remains that the government makes billions of dollars in ticket revenue and none of it trickles down to the Cambodians in the lower rungs of the society.
On the bright side, one never needs to feel vulgar about splurging in a poor country because in a minor way, ‘social enterprises’ are attempting to alleviate poverty by funnelling at least part of tourism revenues into their businesses in Siem Reap. As a result, there are modern social enterprise restaurants that train promising young Cambodians for jobs in the hospitality industry. There are organisations that work with hearing and speech impaired women to produce and sell souvenirs. Similar organisations produce clay jewellery, bamboo products, clothes and shoes.
You can eat a guilt-free beef lok-lak (a Cambodian stir fry), made by a homegrown chef at a social enterprise restaurant. After lunch, walk up to the ‘Made in Cambodia’ market by the riverside to buy little stuffed elephants made by disadvantaged women. Follow this up with a massage at a spa that employs visually impaired men and women.
By the river
For more pedestrian gastronomic pleasures, Siem Reap’s street food vendors congregate each evening at the riverside. The evenings quickly fill with the clanging of steel ladles on frying pans, the whirr of juicers and the smoke of diesel powered generators.
One such evening, sitting inside a shack and sipping custard apple juice — no sugar or ice, little milk, I had told the little girl who was making it — I watched the harmonious sharing economy of the street vendors. You may order at two carts adjacent to each other, but you pay at just one. Sometimes a single family owns two carts — a juice cart and a food cart — and almost all of them employ schoolchildren, their own assuredly, who function as resourceful translators taking orders from customers in English.
Siem Reap’s streets may make you queasy if you can’t stomach the thought of eating bugs for a snack. Women selling mounds of fried crickets, cockroaches, scorpions, grasshoppers and even small snakes are a common sight.
Less adventurous tourists and expats have not been left out of the offerings of the bug gastronomy. A modern restaurant even claims to serve clean bug. Deep-fried crickets. Deep-fried tarantulas in a filo pastry with feta cheese. According to urban legend, these hairy arachnids taste just like soft-shelled crabs.
Then there are the crocodile leather shops. Stuffed ones stand erect inside glass cages, peering at the passerby unnervingly with their mouths wide open. Cambodia has a flourishing crocodile trade and it’s also common to find croc burgers on restaurant menus.
The caretaker of my friend’s apartment in Siem Reap, a cheerful 22-year-old Khmer boy called Hokk Li, told me it’s hard for him to practice his English with foreigners in the building because they don’t seem to have the time (or perhaps, patience). Li has little to worry about, he’s now watching American sitcoms on YouTube and hopes to speak like the characters soon. Don’t be surprised the next time you meet a Cambodian who speaks in the polished Manhattan accent of Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother .
King Suryavarman II had major ambitions when he built the Angkor Wat temple complexes in 12th century — he considered himself to be the reincarnation of Vishnu and wanted the temples to be his portal to the heavens. Li, my new friend, has more modest, achievable ambitions. “I want to go to college,” he told me one humid afternoon.
This Stuttgart-based writer is as happy on the road as he is tending to his houseplants, which often breed fruit flies.
