I still remember my very first visit to the market - I think it's impossible to forget! - the smell, well, stench of meat, rubbish and all sorts of foods. There's flies everywhere, and the ladies perch on their stalls with sticks and plastic bags tied to the end of them swatting the flies away (a somewhat futile task, but they persist anyway.)
However, once you get used to it, you can actually see a very interesting and colourful array of foods; including herbs, spices, lentils, meats, fish, eggs, rice, corn plus a whole host of other foods a lot of which I had no idea what they were!
There's also local dishes pre-made and ready to take away and eat; things like curries, fish stews, rice pancakes with beansprouts and warm corn on the cob. One of the Khmer 'delicacies' which as a Westerner I found difficult to even look at is Balut; a fertilized egg. In Cambodia it's eaten as a street food just with a little salt and lime!
Vegetable stall
The chicken's which look like rubber dog toys!
Rooster tied to a stall
Fish parts in a bucket...
More chicken parts
The fruit stall where I bought bananas for breakfast
The green spiky fruit is a Durian and they smell so bad hotels have signs saying 'No Durian Allowed'
Shrimp and cockle buckets
Cutting the fish
Hairdressers
I never did find out what these squares are that look like soap - lard maybe?
The vegetable stall I always went to - the lady here loved giving me lots of free chilli's and spring onions!
Coconut's
Lots of spices and grains, also the black fermented eggs!
More spices, lentils and garlic.
The good eggs I used for making omelette's!
The day the rotisserie chicken's came! So delicious!
Grilled fish
The rotisserie chickens
Mushrooms
More lentils, beans and spices!
Sticky coconut dessert treats the kids loved!
Chickens tied and awaiting their fate...
Colourful Spices!
No part of the animal goes to waste in Khmer culture.
Chopping the pig trotters!
All parts of the cow
Took a strong stomach to take this photo!
Khmer lady at the meat stall.
Golden Money Tree at the market.
Back to the Coffee Shop...
After shopping at the local market, it's always nice to head to the little oasis among the mayhem which is the coffee house - despite Treng Trayeung being a very poor rural village the family who own the coffee house were always so generous with us: giving us free coffee's and tea (or iced tea if we asked) and one day the mother even cut us up an unripe mango (this is the way the Khmer eat Mango) with salt sugar chilli dip.
Iced coffee with sweet milk
Cute pot of loose leaf tea
The whole coffee shop family!
The daughter and little brother
I will definitely miss my morning trips to the local market; there was always something new and interesting to discover. For these local Khmer people of Treng Trayeung this market is where they grow up, where they play, where they learn the skills from their parents and finally where they will take over the market stall from them. Most children of the families in the market will live here all their lives carrying on the business. I'm glad I got to experience a local market and ultimately grow to really like it.
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