Excuse me, but you have an Antenna in yo Teeth

Today was another long leg of the tri-country bus adventure.  I was going from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap (Cambodia) with Mekong Express (still highly recommend this bus line)  This leg was six hours and $12. Our fare included a bottle of water, a moist towelette and some bakery goods.  We also had a very sweet bilingual tour guide who gave us updates along the way in Khmer and English.  It always seemed like she spoke for a far lengthier time in Khmer than when she translated to English, but most of it was fluff anyway.  During our thirty minute lunch stop in Kampong Thom, I hopped off of the bus and walked over to a fruit and...insect stand where our guide was munching on something.

"What do we have over here?"

"Try it!" she says.  "You don't have any of this in your country?"

"Only for pets."

I stared down at a huge pile of crickets, and realized that someone was asking me to eat something, so I'd better agree.  I asked her if she'd video me eating my first cricket and she happily obliged.  It definitely looked like she was filming me as I grabbed the two back legs of the cricket and shucked the body away from them into my mouth.  As I'm chewing, I notice her fumbling with my camera.  A look of confusion replaced her smile.  ..Sigh..


It wasn't that gross, I'll eat another one!

Ok, so I set her up with the camera again and she clicked the 'stop recording' shutter button just as I'm putting the second one in my mouth.  At this point I'm convinced she is doing this on purpose so that I end up eating ten crickets by the time she has successfully documented this feat.  So I set her up one more time and finally, we got me eating my first ..er..third cricket in Cambodia.

The cricket was soft and crunchy and actually the flavor wasn't so bad (I wouldn't have eaten three if it was!)  The other specialty in Cambodia is tarantula, so we'll see if I come across one of those while I'm here.

I love my couchsurfing family, but after several days of buses and couches, I'm treating myself to a nice hotel called Siem Reap Rooms ($20/night).  So far the staff have been incredibly supportive, the beds are very nice and I like that the location is just out of the riffraff.  Even though the weather calls for overcast mornings every day this week, tomorrow is my best shot at sunrise with Angkor Wat.  Going to bed early!