Cambodians Would Kick Ass on Fear Factor

Are you the sort of traveller who doesn't bother eating a hearty breakfast before jumping onto a bus or train, with the rather naive assumption that meals will work themselves out along the way? I am; and it has usually worked well for me. Some of the best, and certainly most authentic cultural culinary experiences have been gulped down in a dusty parking lot at the edge of a town that I'm just passing through.
Cambodia is not the best country to practice this philosophy. I only took two long distance bus rides in Cambodia, and at both meal stops I was confronted with some local delights that I could not bring myself to try.
The average Cambodian probably does not consume insects on a daily basis, but I assure you that these cockroaches are not out on display for tourist snapshots. I witnessed elderly ladies haggling for the juiciest roaches, and dismissing others as being of poor quality. What qualities one looks for in an insect snack are not known to me, and my grip on the Khmer language was too flimsy to inquire, but one observation I did make, was that not all of these critters are dead. Most are, but some still had a little bit of pep in them.

Cockroaches aside, Khmer cuisine is generally very good, not as exotic and tasty as Thai food, but they serve up some solid curries and assorted other yummies. But not where your bus stops. They ride between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap (near Angkor Wat) is pleasant journey, once you break free of the bustle and smog of the capital, but there aren't many places where buses stop, and after a few hours you do get quite peckish. About one-third of the way into the journey ( it’s about seven hours in total) the morning bus makes its first official stop (not just so the driver can take a leak) in the small Cambodian town of Skuon. Breakfast here (and in surrounding towns) is a leggy affair. Deep fried spiders. A delicacy enjoyed by young and old. Crunchy on the outside, and filled with what appears to be a creamy yellow goo. Yummy...not that I even got close enough to smell these things. They also sell whole pineapples for about $0.25US. Pineapples are tasty, and have yet to make it into any Fear Factor stunts.

These spiders are not feral, but are bred in holes, exclusively for the deep fried spider industry. There is a good explanation for how this food source developed. Under the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodians were simply being starved to death, and unable to consume any of the food that they were producing, as it would negatively impact the production quotas set by the party. Protein is a requirement for survival, and it comes in many forms. Some sources walk on four legs, some crawl on eight. Why these spiders are still consumed is a bit of a mystery. Did the guys who survived that plane crash by eating their friends crave a bit of person every know and then after they where rescued? Put it down as a cultural difference.

So here we have a nation of people who survived a genocide, are confronted with landmines on a daily basis, and can gulp back bugs first thing in the morning. Evidently, fear is not a factor for the people of Cambodia