sometimes the most tasty fruit is what you slice yourself
Today will be our last day in Cambodia. We are heading to Vietnam and although we don’t have any idea of where we will end up, I have a feeling it will be a long day. Travel days always seem to take twice as long as you expect but usually are the days that you look back on later and remember most vividly. There is something so sad about leaving a country; there is no ceremony, no words to utter as the bus pulls away for the last time, and an unsettling question arises of if, perhaps, this will be your last visit to the place. Yet once on the bus, heading now to the next destination, the anticipation and excitement for the unknown is exhilarating and precisely why we travel. We travel to go, to move, to ceaselessly discover.
One of the things I know I will remember most clearly about Cambodia is the faces of so many of the street venders, especially our last days in Kep when we spent lots of time lazing in hammocks near the beach and buying all sorts of things to eat from the ladies who walk the beach promenade selling food. My curiosity had me laden with every kind of fruit on offer.
I loved how they all carried a hand held scale to determine the weight and price of the fruit they sell. I bought mango, papaya, fresh coconut, tamarind, something I think was a prickly pear, custard apples, bananas, pineapple, avocados, and rambutan. Some they cut up for us and some I enjoyed slicing myself with my 50 cent knife from Kampot market. Nothing gives me more joy than eating a juicy mango with lime squeezed over it while sitting on a beach. It’s just one of those moment in life when I feel really happy.
So here’s to you Cambodia, and to all of the beautiful people who made the country such an easy place to be. I hope that like every other time I left this country I was wrong in thinking that it might be the last time. There is much more to see here, and without question, much more to eat.
