About an hour’s drive north of Phnom Penh lies the small market town of Skun. Normally a town like this would attract little attention from passing tourists, eager to reach the wonders of Angkor beyond. But Skun’s market has a treat in store; although that depends perhaps on your appetite for the unusual.
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Eating out is undoubtedly one of the great pleasures of a holiday. Sampling the local cuisine; relaxing over a drink at the end of a busy day; enjoying the ambience of a well-run restaurant with perhaps a great view of the landscape or bustling city streets. But eating out is also a luxury in which relatively few in the world are able to indulge.
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On a Sunday evening the promenades along Phnom Penh’s two rivers, the Tonle Sap and the Mekong, are thronged with people. Families come out to enjoy the cooling air. Monks in traditional robes sit talking quietly in small groups. Boats ply the waters, ferrying their passengers to the opposite bank or on pleasure cruises.
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Did you know that the consumption of insects for food has a name, entomophagy? I didn’t, until I visited Cambodia. There, perhaps more than anywhere else, the people actively serve and eat insects. There is a dark reason behind this. Under the Khmer Rouge, much of the population was forced into poverty; and people resorted to feeding on anything they could find.
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When the Khmer Rouge prison Tuol Sleng, in Phnom Penh, was liberated by the invading Vietnamese army in 1979, the guards killed all but a handful of prisoners to try to prevent them telling of the horrors perpetrated there. Chum Mey is just one of thousands who were imprisoned here. He is also just one of a very few to have survived the experience – to have lived to tell that story.
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The year that has just past will remain long in all our memories, no doubt, and not for the best of reasons. A year ago the new coronavirus was just seeping into our consciousnesses and we had no idea how it would turn our lives upside down. We certainly know that now!
