21October 2025: Siem Reap: At the Supermarket, Plantation and a Farewell Dinner
Last full day of the tour anticipating a brutal day of travelling for the return to Toronto tomorrow. Had a leisurely buffet breakfast and several cups of tea. I will say the eggs I had for breakfast (and the one over my beef Lok Nok last night) were the best I have ever had. Produced by a local cooperative. Dark yolk and tasty. North American eggs are tasteless whether purchased from the farm or the supermarket and whether free range or organic. EURO eggs are superior to North American eggs but these Cambodian eggs are something else!
I took a walk in the environs around the hotel. A busy commercial section with numerous shops and businesses low key and basic. Restaurants, car repairs, footwear shops and so many pharmacies. Third world streets in action. I did stop at a shop La Plantation selling Cambodian spices including the famous Cambodian pepper KAMPOT sold to gourmands throughout the world. A very fashionable shop with two levels. It could have been in Toronto or New York in its design and merchandise. I purchased a variety of Kampot peppercorns.
I returned to the hotel for a lunch of Khmer beef and noodles which was excellent. Headed out down the main street outside the hotel to a supermarket. Two levels, modern and immaculately clean. Purchased dried jackfruit, 12 Monkey Cambodian tea and some more generic Cambodian peppercorns. Went to the swimming pool for a couple of hours and watched the entertaining rotund Americans bobbing in the pool and downing beer. I noticed all the men had mostly whitish beards. I thought they had the look of Santa Claus.
Before our closing dinner poolside several of us dropped in for a glass of champagne at the Champagne Bar and the American crowd was there beer in hands and baseball caps on the men’s heads. You could hear their conversations a mile away. Poor manners but highly entertaining!
ABC International finally delivered with its farewell dinner. Their Sicilian farewell dinner in May was a culinary disaster and my fish stunk. Two people were severely ill after that dinner, so I wasn’t expecting much in Cambodia but what a SPREAD! Sea bass, grilled chicken and beef, prawns, a variety of noodles and cheeses and a wide selection of desserts. And even a spectacular classical Khmer dance by performers costumed in silk brocades. The wine was of low quality and only two glasses per person…good old ABC International! That woman so ill from eating that fresh vegetable salad in Bangkok was going at the same type of salad with a passion (for illness) ! Hopefully her innards did not explode on the plane trip home! We learnt that two of our travellers had spent the night in a local hospital with severe influenza. I had passed by that hospital and declined on the opportunity to sell my blood at a kiosk outside it!
Off early in the morning to Siem Reap airport as gleaming and deserted as it was. A flight to Bangkok, connection to Hong Kong then a 16-hour flight to Toronto. Insane boredom. I can’t remember much more than not eating anything except some ice cream on Cathay Pacific and thinking like a child every hour saying, “ARE WE THERE YET”.
Final reflections to come!
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