{"id":3098,"date":"2026-03-16T15:05:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/?p=3098"},"modified":"2026-03-16T20:14:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T20:14:52","slug":"sun-15-mar-siem-reap-to-countryside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/?p=3098","title":{"rendered":"Sun 15 Mar – Siem Reap to Countryside"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I am pretty sick of hotel breakfast, so I venture out to see what Cambodia has to offer. This was a nice attempt at Eggs Benedict. The food here has definitely been better than Laos but it’s still not as good as Thailand. I dare not suggest this in the bus as the tour guide, relaxed in all other regards, holds a lot of hostility towards Cambodia’s western neighbour in the context of the current war.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bus ride today is not too long, about three hours. I am starting to feel a bit sick of the large distance covered on this tour. It’s significantly longer than advertised because the itinerary was changed to exclude anything 250km of the Thai border. I kill time being a good student. Today I master the words for ‘hot’ and ‘iced’ (to assist ordering coffee), counting to 100 and how to say ‘tasty’.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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First activity is an afternoon cycle around the village. It’s dry season and very sandy. Surprisingly difficult to cycle in patches. I felt a bit like Ewan and Charlie battling the sandy roads on their KTMs. Somehow I am sweatier than the labourers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A hit of sugar cane, stat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Escape is futile. Death is coming for us all.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Who do you think you’re mooing at? <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This guy has a wooden plank attached to the back of his tractor that he stands on to ski over the rice paddies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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On our cycle tour we stop off at a house where they make rice flour noodles to sell at the market. One of the ladies, less industrious than the others, takes an interest in me after I can report my age in Khmer (sahm siep mouy). She starts asking if I am married and if I want a Khmer husband. This is all translated with reluctance and embarrassment from the tour leader. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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After Cycle Tour, it’s straight away onto Walking Tour around the fields during sunset. Trying to wear us out so as to submit to homestay life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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In the morning this man would have climbed up the palm tree, cut the tree and tied a container around the incision so that sap will drip into it. As the day heats up, the sap ferments. At sunset, he collects the spoils: palm wine. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Homestay dinner. This lady was a cutie. She is a Khmer Literature teacher to primary school children. She made a spread of: fermented fish, fried salted fish, rice cakes, greens and a meatball soup. Served with rice and the noodles bought a few hours ago. There are a few homestays in the village and the tour company rotates through them. Some months no one stays. A busy month is two bookings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Village.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thailand-laos-cambodia-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3098"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3136,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions\/3136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}