After showering and relaxing in our A/C room, we are ready for a more light hearted evening - and we've got one ahead of us: an evening of street food! We walk up to the meeting point, a coffee café in the riverside district, above the Royal Palace. Once there, we ask for Nara, who is the tour guide. He isn't there, and we sit down at a table inside to wait. The waitress tells us we can't sit there, but then puts us outside, and as it turns out, with another couple, Phillip and Angelica, who are waiting for the tour. They are from Austria and had taken Nara's morning cooking class, then decided to come along for the food tour. As it turns out, a gal behind us, Rachel from London, is also doing the tour, so once Nara arrives we all get together and then head off into the night on our private tuk tuk with Nara.
Nara is the chef at Feel Good Café and Coffee Roasters, the place we met for the tour. He is very knowledgeable and friendly and quite fun to be with on this tour. Our first stop is a street vendor for fruit. Yay! It's one of the vendors we walk past on the river with those bizarre round green things that have pointy little dots coming out of them. We can finally figure out what they are! As it turns out, we are there first for another fruit, the pomelo, a semi-grapefruit sort of fruit. Nara shows us how to peel it, and then eat it with a spicy, salty sugar mixture. Very good. It's not overly acidic or sour…just a very nice citrusy flavor. Doesn't upset my stomach at all - which is my gauge of the acidic level of a fruit. And then we get to the mysterious green thing - it's a lotus fruit! Cool. He shows us how to peel this and pop the little seeds out of the hard pith, then eat them. Not as good as the pomelo. Sort of boring and not worth the effort. Although he says they are good toasted, I don't think the vendor has many of them toasted, so we don't get to try them (although there is a bag hanging below the cart, but I think the conversation they had was that it wasn't enough to sell to him and others maybe? Don't know - a lot of sounds I couldn't distinguish and hand gestures - I'm just guessing!).
We all climb back into the tuk tuk and take off down the road, heading for Diamond City, which is known for "lovers". Why, we're not so clear, except there is the funland place right there with rides and carnival things, there are also possibly restaurants and dancing halls? Not sure, but Nara says it is for lovers. We stop at the main intersection of the island at a street food vendor (unfortunately positioned next to an obscenely loud music tent that is blaring music so loud we can barely hear). This stop is to try a popular snack of something or other. Don't know the name, but it is basically fish paste mixed with herbs and a spicy sauce on the bottom of this little teeny plastic wrapped sack. We've seen them all over, hanging from street stalls. So now we know what they are. Not too bad, a little fishy for me - but I'm not a big fish paste fan. They are like little "meatballs," Nara says.
Next up is sticky rice in a bamboo stalk. This is a snack people take everywhere, on the bus, the train, etc. It's compact and will stay good until you peel it and eat it. The rice is soaked overnight, then stuffed into the bamboo with sugar and spices. The bamboo is then charred with straw over it (I think) for a couple of hours. The finished product is then stacked on the vendor cart and weighed out when you purchase it. To eat it, you take the "plug" of stems out of the top, then peel the bamboo back like a banana. Then munch on the "stick" of rice that is revealed. Yummy. It's sweet, but not overpoweringly sweet. Just a really good, slightly nutty taste. And it is filling. Wow. No way I could a whole one of these. At least not and eat anything else.
Done with the noise - and the snacks - we jump back into our trusty tuk tuk and away we go. But we don't get all that far - the traffic over here is horrendous. And the reason why is because all along the left side of the road are these huge banquet facilities that can be rented out - for 500 to 1000 people. And today, being Saturday, they are all being used for weddings. Oh my gosh. Talk about over the top. The pictures don't do this justice. Every single facility, and there must be 10 or more are decorated out the wazoo. The entrance ways are a variety of flower arches, draperies, some even have huge horse statues! On each side of the entrance sits the wedding couple's family - one on each side. Both have chairs and tables, but also glamour shots of each of the parents hung on a partition/wall behind them. It is amazing. It takes us the better of 15 minutes to get out of there, just down one little 1/2 mile stretch of road! But it is totally entertaining watching all the pomp and circumstance. And Nara says this is only part of the ceremony, that most last for a few days - beginning with the religious and possibly ending here, or after. Wow!
After escaping wedding hell, we cross back over the Tonle Sap and stop at a line of vendors selling - you guessed it - bugs! The bug vendors. Oh boy. Do we dare? Well, heck we ate Cuy, so might as well not stop at guinea pig! There is a huge selection on the cart - crickets, some black bugs Nara says we shouldn't eat because they are hard to get the stinger out of (ok, we'll take your advice), frogs, sea snakes, shrimps, and all sorts of things. We have a selection to try here: Crickets - very good, crunchy, fried with an excellent lime flavor - really taste like chips. Shrimp with the shell still on - no problem, it's like a softshell crab once it is fried and seasoned, just take the head off, and munch. Sparrow - um - not so much. Yes, we actually ate sparrow (see the Cuy comment). It was not the best. Nara instructed us to just break it apart and eat it a little at a time. We were able to nibble a tiny bit - but no more. It wasn't very good, so why torture ourselves? Everyone was a sport and tried everything though. Even Rachel who said absolutely not to any bug, popped everything in her mouth eventually - and chased it down with a healthy swig of water! 
Nara was disappointed there were not tarantulas - oh darn! He even went to two vendors to find them, but not to be had. Shoot. Well, maybe next time! Just kidding - not a chance!
So, bugs down the hatch, we head back up town for traditional Khmer street food outside the market. We land at this great little place where we sit on the little stools like locals and Nara orders us a selection of delicacies. First we get fried frog - whole frog, not just frog legs. We've had it before, no biggie, and yes, it does taste like chicken. There are vegetables on the table that Nara helps us eat with some concoction he's mixed up with salt and lime and something else. Very good. Then we have this great little egg dish. It's baked right in a custard dish, has a little sugar in it, so it is yummy and creamy and custardy. Excellent. Then there are what look like hard boiled eggs on the table, which are actually duck eggs. Ok. Eggs. No biggie. Until he cracks one open and it turns out it is actually a gestated duck egg. There is a baby duck in there. Oh gross! No way - we ALL draw the line at that one. And if only I had the camera ready to get the look on Rachel's face when Nara cracked that thing open - priceless.
We try to make Nara try it, and even he won't eat the duck - he did dip into the egg yolk to prove he would eat it, but still. Oh gross! And the funniest thing is that the restaurant owner kept telling Nara not to order the eggs, that the "Westerners" wouldn't like them and wouldn't eat them! Everyone around us (all local) were laughing at us. Which was entertainment on it's own!
After the egg incident, we meander through the market, which is basically shutting down for the night. Then onto the Night Market - sort of similar to our Chiang Mai Night market, except much, much smaller and only on Tues-Sun. We walk through the offerings, fans, and such, and Nara takes us over to the food court, where each vendor has their own bamboo mats spread out on the ground. We have to decide which vendor we want before sitting on their mats.
There seems to be some confusion, but we finally get seated at the end of a row (no pictures, I just forgot!). Semi-comfortable seated (I’m in a skirt, big tactical error) we at least get beers to wash down our previous adventures, and then normal food! Fried rice or beef noodles. Yay! Ed and I get one of each to share so we can both taste them. Both are really, really good – and a great way to end out our crazy night of food tasting. Eating all done – we bid farewell to our pals and grab a tuk tuk back to the hotel. $4 – no $2 – $3 – no $2! Ok, off we go…and oh, the people! They are everywhere. All over the riverfront, thousands on the lawn behind the Royal Palace – it is crazy nuts! We end up giving the tuk tuk driver $3 anyway because, I mean really? The traffic is the pits, it’s only a dollar and what are we arguing about?
Quick room refresh then out to Khavi for our specially priced drinks. The bartender even remembers Ed liked a certain song and put it on the speakers for us. So sweet! But its really hot here tonight – and not a lick of breeze, so we don’t stay too long and head back to the comfort of our air conditioned room. End of another adventurous day (I’d say great, but it was a bit too somber and emotional to just flippantly throw out the great category).
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