Wordless Wednesday

APAD 082: Heavy rain coming…

Posted by on Jun 1, 2011 in A Photo a Day, Addicted to Meme, All things Khmer, Cambodia, Cambodia life, Phnom Penh, sights, Wordless Wednesday | 0 comments

Hurry home, love…

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APAD 075: (Boiled) Egg-vendor

Posted by on May 25, 2011 in A Photo a Day, Addicted to Meme, All things Khmer, faces, people, Wordful Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday | 3 comments

A ten-year old girl sells boiled eggs at the Neak Loung ferry station.
Back when I used to work with IDRC’s iREACH Project, I regularly visited one of our project sites in Prey Veng Province. To go there, I took a local taxi – usually an old Toyota camry – and takes about three hours or so. Halfway-point is Neak Loung, separated by only a 15minute ferry ride across the Mekong river to the main land of Prey Veng.
Every day, hundreds of taxis and buses arrive at Neak Loung, and they are always greeted by a swarm of vendors, old and young alike. They sell canned sodas, packed lunches, BBQed pork/chicken, candies, bottled water, boiled eggs, and a host of others.

Most girls (the age of the girl above) are not in school because they are tasked of helping their parents earn additional income for the family. The boys, however, are given priority in education simply due to cultural values, while the girls are kept at  home to help in the housework, looking after siblings, or, in this case, earn money for the family. Most parents here think that girls are going to get married and leave home anyway.

Sad, but true. This happens everywhere in the world, especially in third world countries.

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APAD 070: Lotus seeds

Posted by on May 18, 2011 in A Photo a Day, Addicted to Meme, All things Khmer, food, Wordful Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday | 6 comments

Above are the round and raised lotus blossoms but my Khmer friends call them seed “heads”. *Pods would have been the right word* The lotus seeds are inside and, yes, they are edible.

Lotus flowers not only adorn the altars of Khmer temples and shrines, they are also served in dishes at dinner tables. Lotus flowers are beautiful and trigger feelings of happiness and calm and they are also prized ingredients in Khmer cuisine. As a matter of fact, most of the lotus parts are edible, including the roots. They are often served as salads or an ingredient in Khmer soups and stir-fry dishes. Some adventurous cooks have incorporated lotus seeds in other dishes and baked products nowadays.

But today, it’s all about the seeds.

An average blossom has about 20-30 lotus seeds, above. They are green (when unripe) and rubbery, about the size of peanuts, edible and eaten like nuts. You can easily dig the seeds with your fingers when they are ripe.

Cambodians love to eat them fresh as snack when they are ripe. They pop it into their mouths like pop corns!

This is to show you what’s inside the seed. I sampled the fresh seeds and I couldn’t say I like or dislike it. It tasted like raw peanuts though, in case you want to know.

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APAD 063: Do you have room for more?

Posted by on May 11, 2011 in A Photo a Day, Addicted to Meme, All things Khmer, people, transportation, Wordless Wednesday | 5 comments

Do you know how many people this moto-scooter holds? Make a guess.

If you look closely you will find that there are actually five people on this moto. Not only that the moto-scooter is overloaded but the baby is standing on his mum’s legs and only his mum’s arms for protection. Notice that only the driver has a helmet. Unbelievable, isn’t it?

This is a common sight here and it is one of the sights that gets me rather worked up. Talking on the phone while driving is another. 

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APAD 057: Stop…..!!

Posted by on May 5, 2011 in Addicted to Meme, All things Khmer, Cambodia life, Signs, Wordless Wednesday | 8 comments

This is the first Khmer word in Khmer script that I learned to read and write – “chhuop“, or stop.
It is composed of only 3 letters, with a symbol ‘. The third letter is “bo” (or letter b, it’s equivalent in the Roman alphabet).  If it has the symbol  written on top of that letter, it means it’s a short b (it pronounced almost sounding like the letter p). Anyways, please excuse my blabberings 🙂

I wonder though if these STOP/CHHUOP signs are installed on the streets, to compliment the red traffic lights, would some Khmer drivers actually stop from running on red lights? Just a thought.

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APAD 056: A Khmer wedding reception

Posted by on May 4, 2011 in A Photo a Day, Addicted to Meme, All things Khmer, Cambodia life, culture, Wordless Wednesday | 1 comment

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