Cooking at the market

There are big holes of water at the front of our market at the moment. You can see this donut seller is cooking by a "pond".



You can see he is using a beer bottle for a rolling pin. Those round ones I call "Cambodian donuts" and the long stick ones I call "Chinese donuts". I first saw them in China at breakfast time.

Central Market/ Psar t mei

Here are some photos of a big market in PP, Ang took these top two photos.  I usually  buy fruit, veg , meat at a market near us but I like going to this one as it has more variety.

In the week between Christmas and New Year I rode my bike to Central market and bought lots of yummy veggies we can't get at our market, such as broccoli, red caps, snow peas. 

I was so excited to be eating different veggies. Also its fun to go "shop there as the walk ways between stalls are wider and smoother , and its mostly inside. Plus they have a place to park bikes.

Today at the market

When I was at the market today a girl started talking to me in English. I felt like I was back in China. The town I lived in didn't have many expats and everyone wanted to learn English, so people always started talking to me.

She talked to me in English, asked me my name, where I came from etc. I answered and asked her back in Khmer! We exchanged email addresses.

Before I left the market she had bought me a present. It was something in a gift box, which was in a gift bag. I wasn't sure whether to accept it, wondering if it meant I would become her English teacher slave forever. But when I tried to refuse she said she would be very sad if I didn't take it, so I took it.

I didn't need to buy fruit or veggies today, I felt a bit bad because the sellers I go to normally got excited when they saw me coming. I was mainly there to buy a huge quantity of instant noodles. We are having TEN youth group members stay over night this week and they might want to eat "mi" for breakfast.

As I was walking along the dusty road home I saw something strange. A man walking slowly. He was wearing a huge American flag. I asked someone about him and they said he is crazy.

Off the island

Today I went for a walk out of the campus. In our street I saw people having fun on a boat they made. Then I splashed and slipped my way to the market. It was surprisingly normal. After being flooded in it was strange to see the market was just the same.

This photo is of the fish stall I often buy fish for frying, and below is my beef lady, and one of the stalls I buy veggies from.

I bought carrots and "spey katana" today. Its a leafy green veggie. The seller was breast feeding her baby as she served me.

After the market I went for a walk along a near by street. Instead of drains to take water away, it has pipes pumping water into it, as you can see above and in the last photo in this post.

I call this photo "Coconut Island".

This week is water festival- lots and lots of people travelling to Phnom Penh!

My shopping having a rest while I took some photos.

Water being pumped into the street. I think this one is out of someones house.

At the market

I have got into the habit of buying from the same sellers each time I go to the market. There are two veggie sellers opposite each other I always buy from. They know I like to buy carrots so when they see me they call out something like " Do you need to buy carrots?".



Yesterday the lady didn't have enough so I waited while she went someone to get them for me.

As I watched her cut up a pumpkin for a few other customers I told her I wanted to buy some too. But after the others took their pieces, the remaining pieces turned out to be brown and gross inside. So she disappeared again to go and find a good pumpkin for me!



I also regularly buy beef from a particular meat seller. She is always really busy serving heaps of customers at once, cutting up bits and pieces of dead cow and pig, some bits I'm not sure what they are. But she knows I like to buy "pure meat", so when she sees me she asks "A kilo of beef, in two bags?"



Sometimes we end up with bits of pork or buffalo meat, which is understandable as her stall is heaped with so much and she is serving everyone very quickly.



A near by seller has fish. I don't know anything about fish, so when I first started buying fish I asked the seller to tell me which one is good for frying. Actually the very first time I just bought some random different fish. When I took them home Soeun told me they were good for soup. I'm not really into soup, so now I always get the fish for frying.



The seller has some lying on her table that are already dead and some are still flipping around in a basin of water. After I choose the fish I wait while they weigh it and then take out the guts and scrape some scales off. Then all I need to do it take it home and give it to my husband to cook.