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Monday, April 7, 2008

Delicious meal at the local wat

As posted here, my husband and I are currently in Kep for a 4day-getaway.

Kep is a coastal municipality some 170kms away from the capital of Phnom Penh. Kep town was, in another era, a tourist centre for the wealthy from Phnom Penh, who enjoyed its beaches, fish and sea breezes. Now the municipality as a whole is impoverished and relies on inshore fishing and small-scale agriculture. There are a couple of family-run fish sauce factories, and about 1,000 hectares of salt basins providing employment for about twenty family enterprises and seasonable employment for perhaps sixty more.


We visited the monks yesterday and delivered a brand new computer set with sound system and a copier-printer-scanner machine to the monks of Wat Kampong Tralach where my husband volunteered to teach English when I was assigned to work here in 2006. The money used to purchase all of these was collected from the sales of the Cambodia Maps CD, plus, the donation from his family in memory of his deceased grandmother and grandfather. Everyone - monks and children alike - was excited about the new computer set! Now the monks can design and print their lessons - and almost anything they like - in Khmer and in English. Plus, the students at the wat will have the opportunity to learn how to use a computer.

The monks wouldn't let us leave without having lunch at the wat. They prepared a lavish meal for us:

For a starter, beef and vegetable broth:

beef and vegetable broth

Followed by...

pork and tomatoes

Pork and vegetable stir-fry


Every Cambodian meal is not without a dip – we were served these with a chili-dip:

chili dip
Fresh chili, lemon juice, a little bit of sugar and fish sauce and voila – it’s an all-around seasoning.

1 comments:

tigerfish said...

Geez....food looks good! Are those lemon pulp/sacs in the dip?