Siem Reap: The Kingdom Of Ancient Kings and Heavenly Dancers (Part 1)

Siem Reap is mesmerising, alluring and enchanting. It is like living in another world, where time passes slowly and life is much simpler. We spent 4 days here at the end of June, and despite our short stay, we felt rejuvenated and enriched. Rejuvenated with the understanding that there is so much to life than daily deadlines and stressful to-do lists. Enriched in the knowledge that empires rise and fall from time immemorial, and the realisation that we are nothing but tiny chess pieces in this gargantuan world, along the endless journey of time.

There was so much to see and experience in Siem Reap, and my personal favourite experience was exploring the ruins of some of their ancient and breathtaking temples. There were several memorable indelible moments in our trip, and these were:

1) Little Bee ate a deep fried cricket!
I know Little Bee is brave and adventurous, but her desire to eat a deep fried cricket came as an utmost surprise for me! We were walking around in the night market one night when a female hawker ambled by with a big aluminium tray of deep fried crickets.

Most of us squirmed at the sight of these crickets, but my father-in-law and Little Bee picked up a cricket each and examined them closely. My father-in-law was prodding Little Bee in jest to eat it, with the expectations that she would not. Little Bee was extremely curious about the cricket and I saw her asking lots of questions about the crickets with the hawker.

Being the typical kiasi Singaporean, I told Little Bee that deep fried crickets sold in this manner may not be very hygienic or clean. To my embarrassment, the friendly Cambodians around us insisted that the crickets were completely safe and clean to eat. Before I could say anything, I saw Little Bee's eyes sparkled with excitement and glee when she heard that it was safe to eat these crickets, and immediately popped one big cricket into her wide-opened mouth, much to our shock and surprise!

Can you see the cricket's legs peeking out from her mouth?!

She chewed on it with zest, swallowed down the remains heartily and declared exuberantly that it was super delicious! The Cambodians around her cheered jubilantly and as I watched her hobnobbing with them happily, I was once again struck by her natural ability to connect with all kinds of different people immediately. This is such a rare talent (which is not apparent in any of us in the family!) and I hope she will never douse this wonderful ability of her to connect with people as she grows older.

2) Big Bee and I were stung by a giant wasp!
We were exploring the famous Ta Prohm temple which is also known as a jungle temple, nestled mysteriously within trees and lots of colossal roots. Lots of insects and creepy crawlies abounded - we saw huge, fat millipedes, gigantic termite mounds, armies of big ants and strange flying insects.

As we were taking a family portrait, Big Bee suddenly exclaimed in pain and said there was something really sharp in her bag or around the back of her skirt because something pricked her hand. I patted her down, and encountered a sharp, painful sensation on my index finger, almost as if a needle had pricked me. After a few more moments of search, an enormous metallic blue and black wasp/hornet/whatever the gross insect is called crawled out from beneath Big Bee's skirt. YIKES! Thankfully, our guide helped us remove it from her skirt.

The scary part was when Big Bee told me that she was beginning to see psychedelic colours and felt dizzy. I felt a little nauseous and dizzy myself, and attributed it to either shock syndrome or the venom that the wasp injected into our bodies to shock us into temporary immobility.

Whatever it was, we both felt better after a while, although the swollen insect bites stayed with us for more than a week!

I know these two encounters probably did not encapsulate the Cambodian experience well, but these were some of the more memorable and personal moments for me. I am writing another post on what I truly love about Siem Reap - being like Indiana Jones, exploring the nooks and crannies of myriad temple ruins!