4 friends + night out in Siem Reap Cambodia + a little beer= eating Crickets???

The four of us (Nicole, Cameron, Andrew and I) took a 5 hour bus ride to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh we left the hustle and bustle of the big city behind us only to arrive in Siem Reap another city marginally less busy with motorcycles, tuk tuks, scooters and street vendors. Unlike Phnom Penh, the city is catered to travelers that come and stay while visiting the many temples of Angkor. There are many restaurants the serve both Western and Eastern foods. The prices are really cheap for meals and drinks and the shopping is incredibly cheap as well.

Upon arrival in Cambodia, Cameron insisted that we must all try eating crickets together … a sort of bonding ritual I guess… Of course Andrew immediately agreed, I agreed (not thinking the moment would actually come) and Nicole (a vegetarian) was a little wary about it. We weren’t sure if crickets were considered meat???
One night after Nicole and I returned from some serious shopping at the Night Market, we were surprised to see Andrew and Cameron chatting to a local guy with a bag of fried crickets on the table. The boys had eaten a few by that point, with beer to wash it down. Honestly, it looked repulsive… the critters in the bag looked exactly like huge live crickets, only deep fried. Each cricket was intact, including head, wings and limbs. I looked at Nicole, she had the look of fear in her eyes… after a few minutes somehow she was convinced that bugs were not considered meat by her husband. Personally, I had been fine with thought of eating a cricket UNTIL I saw them, I would have definitely backed out had it been just Andrew and I. The boys bravely demonstrated to us that they were tough and ate another cricket each. On the count of 3 I threw the cricket into my mouth and chewed it up. What did it taste like???? Not too bad… It was crunchy like chips and had a fried taste to it. Shortly after Nicole ate her cricket too!
Conclusion: Friends bonded by Bugs!

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Siem Reap, Cambodia

The Temples of Angkor:

We were really looking forward to visiting the Temples of Angkor… we considered it to be one of the highlights for our entire trip. Most people have only heard of Angkor Wat, but there are many more temples located in the lost city of Angkor. We hired a tuk tuk driver that took us to the sights every day. He would wait for us outside of each Wat, then drive us to another location. The temples were amazing and every bit as awesome as we thought they would be. Some of our favourite temples were Angkor Wat which is the largest religious building in the world. It was built in 1112-1152 as a temple to honour Vishnu. Bayon was my favourite temple it was built around 1200 it was like a maze inside and it felt like more of a ruin site. Ta Prohm was also amazing, built sometime in the 12th century. The movie Tomb Raider was filmed there. The really interesting thing about this temple was that it was left basically in the state that the French explorers found it. There were massive trees growing through the temple with their huge roots engulfing the temple. It had an eerie feel to it, but was interesting to see how nature had immersed itself into the temple after years of growth. There were many more that we visited each had a different look, and was built for a different purpose. Unfortunately our pictures do the actual temples no justice.

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The Temples of Angkor, Siem Reap, Cambodia

~Nicola