Conspicuous consumption

The routine of lounging, snoozing, drinking, eating, reading and swimming was broken by an excellent trip to the Sihanoukville markets. Shaded by canvas and corrugated iron, the markets were hot, shadowy, and odiferous. When it began to rain, even the duckboards underfoot were steaming. Unflurried, we ventured forth. Honestly, Monica and I should really be hosting our own gourmet adventurer food-show. We could call it ‘The Fearless Gullet’ or ‘Point and Eat’ or ‘I Will if You Will’ or something like that.

Discretion and a desire to avoid the sociological safari syndrome held me back from taking photographs of all that was on offer. It included: fresh crabs, more different kinds of dried fish and shellfish than I would have thought possible, a long alley bedecked with ripening bananas, preserved eggs rolled in some sort of dark ash, pickled everything, huge baskets full of lime and chillis, fresh noodles, barbequed seafood, fluffy ducklings (sniff), piles of tropical fruit and herbs and lotus flowers... Foolishly, we had eaten breakfast before hitting the markets and hence were only able to sample a few bowls of insanely cheap and entirely delicious noodle (one yellow and one white, for variety) soup. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There were also plenty of sweets to try – pumpkin stuffed with coconut cream jelly, sago delights candied chilli and mangosteen served with chickpea flour halva and coconut milk, black rice cooked in fruit juice with fresh coconut, deep-fried sweet dough (the traditional name) served in a banana-leaf. Things do taste better when wrapped in a banana leaf, there’s no doubt about that.

Below are the leftovers from our tropical fruit purchases. The mangosteen is making inroads into my list of favourite fruits.