The trip was the bomb

So I'm back! Just so so much to tell you about the trip! So many pictures but I can't upload them all. So just a preview today. This is what I brought back. My luggage was overweight by 2.5kg. I didn't want to pay the extra USD4 for a kg ...so I had to take the kilograms out carry it with plastic bags as hand carry. Thank god my backpack was as heavy to keep me from falling to the sides!


1# Two bottles of sauces. The one in the picture is a kind of vegetable seasoning. It's salty like the soya sauce but totally different taste. Very unique. The other bottle of sauce I bought was a prawn and duck sauce mixture. It's also salty, taste different from the sauce above and don't taste like any sauce I have tasted in Malaysia.


2# I bought this at one of the local Chinese bakery called Aspara Bakery. Honestly, the pastries and deserts there (and Siem Reap) are not that nice. The groundnuts and sesame seed biscuits above taste a little too sweet. We can get much better ones here. I bought them because I like this biscuit and just though of trying them out.


3# I bought another pack groundnut biscuit from the local market (Old Market) just for fun. This doesn't taste too sweet and is ok, but still, better ones are sold in Malaysia. The biscuit on the right is just a flour egg mixture deep fried and coated in icing sugar. I bought them at first thinking it was some ginger biscuit... this tasted horrible. "Lau fong" already although the packet was tied tightly. The biscuit was with no aroma.... just flour and sugar.


4# I bought some of these beaded accessories from two girls while I was visiting the Angkor temples. USD1 for 6. Buy from these kids when you can because when I wanted to buy more of them I only got 4 for USD1 in the old market.


5# Okay...I spent most of my "cha ching" here for some colourful "bling bling". My mom wanted the ruby ring.. and specified the shape, the pattern and the shape of the stone at the sides. The ring cost me a bomb...and a lot of hassel. It was actually a blur sapphire, I had to get them to change it to a ruby and resize the ring to fit my mom's finger. Rounded stones are much cheaper... I paided 50% more just for the rectangle stones.

The two other rings are for myself. One sky blueish, and one pink. The girl that sold me the ring told me the sky blueish stone colour was for someone born in my birth month. The two "diamond strings" are for myself and my aunt. Took me freaking long to bargain and still I paid too much. *^(*@$^*#

The cat necklace is for my buddy and the ballerina pendant... I just had to buy it when I saw it. Share share with my sister la.

Stones there are real. But you got to really bargain to get it worth your USDs. Pick those that have thicker silver or gold coating. Go stall hopping until you get the price you want… the other shop keepers will always call you back and offer you a lower price, so just play hard to get. Pretend that you don’t want something even you want it desperately. I learnt my lesion… I suck at bargaining.


6# One my first day in Angkor, about 30 seconds walk away from my hotel, I smelt coffee. An there it was, a local coffee manufacturer. The old couple that manages the place are Chinese and speak Chinese. I didn't have trouble communicating. The old man's surname is Chang, and he is a Hokien. He owns the business. Kiam Sia!


7# This two pieces of cement is one the few reasons my luggage was over weight hehehe. I bought them from Dy. He a 70 year old man that manages and the teacher and the maker of the miniature Angkor Wat. You can see his work at his home, his work shop, the cultural village, and in Phnom Phen. He was awarded by the King (I think) in 2000 for his work. Oh, and he sighed my cement!


8# The famous Apsara dancers that was the one the end product of the 1000 years of Churning the Sea of Milk. Most of the temples (...then again I think all of them) have the Apsara dancers hall. All the dances are carved in the rocks uniquely. All with different hand gestures and clothes and decoratives.


9# Ok, I don't smoke, but ... just for fun. The local store keeper told me that the Angkor and Ara brand are the famous brands that Cambodians in Siem Reap smokes.


10# I bought a whole bunch of these clay magnets... another reason why my luggage was darn heavy. The top left is the face in the Bayon temple. King some thing....The bottom right is King Jayavarnam the 7th. He was the first Buddhist king that ruled Cambodia and is responsible for the grand Angkor Wat (and a lot more of other temples. But he did also destroy a lot of Hindu temples and converted them to Buddhist temples)


11# These are their silk scarves. The locals wear them around the neck to protect their skin from the sun. I didn't buy any of the scarves actually. The pink one was from a friend that came from Siem Reap 2 weeks before I left. The green one was from another friend sometime back when he was there for a company trip. The last scarf was from a souvenir stall keeper. Me and LF (my travel buddy) personally hand delivered a gift for her from one of her Malaysian friends. We spent quite sometime locating her... and when we found her stall, we were told that she was away at a relatives place. We didn’t catch her until the last few hours before our flight and she was glad we did.


12# Don't laugh, but I did bring back some local sweet deserts for my sister to try. The one on the left is a steamed flour mixture with banana. The one on the right the same flour mixture but stuffed with groundnuts. They taste like the local Chinese quih, ours are better.


13# Palm sugar. The sugar is wrapped in a way that no ants can get in. ... Or is it the leaf smell that blocks it from the ants? They have this at the "high class" markets. USD1 for a stick. I got 10 for USD3 in the market and it was still over priced! Kena waterfish yet again.

14# Oh... I also bought their version of thick "queh tieow" from the market. ...If you think I'm crazy, well yep, maybe a little. But I remembered my mom bought back 5kg of their "mee souah", I only bough 500g. I'm more sane HAHAHA


15# Last but totally not the least, the super yummylicious French bread two different ham and cheese and picked vegetable chili sandwich! Why in hell did I buy this back? You have to personally take a bite to understand why I was crazy enough to do this. I had to let my dad to try. When he was there, he didn't get a chance to try (because he was traveling with a bunch of "Aiyor so dusty at the roadside stall") and was complaining that he regretted about not eating it. So... daddy, there you go. And he totally loved it... me too!