Tarantula Tasting

Today was another long bus ride to Siem Reap, but luckily we had our own bus to travel in. The “highlight” of today I guess would be that I ate a tarantula. I told myself at the beginning of this 4 month adventure that I want to take everything in and try new things, experiences, etc. so I guess this had to fall in that category.

We made a pit stop at a local market/rest area and were bombarded by young children trying to sell us pineapple and/or bananas. They were clinging to each of us absurdly and followed us to the bathrooms, through the market, and back onto the bus. One of the played with a live tarantula as a hook for us to buy fruit. John took the bait and paid $1 in exchange for a picture of him holding the spider and a small bag of pineapple. Poleak bought two tarantulas for $2 and a bag full of crickets for $1. One very strange thing about Cambodia is that they use US currency for all purchases. I’m not sure if that is really legal according to America’s regulations and it was definitely odd for me paying for everything that way.

So...on the bus we were all given the tarantula to try. It took me a few attempts to even grab the hairy creature as my hand was trembling. I eventually just closed my eyes and put a leg in my mouth and started chewing. It didn’t really taste like much, more like deep fried deep fry...haha. Although I wish I had enough guts to eat the entire body and all the legs, it was just too much to swallow. Poleak loves eating tarantulas so he took what we didn’t want and just bit right into the middle of it. I got a

great picture of that.

After the tarantula came the cricket. I was surprised only 3 of us took advantage of that opportunity. There are two young English girls on this leg of the trip who are too proper for eating insects and such. The rest I guess just didn’t have the stomach for it. I placed the cricket on my tongue for a quick picture and then just started chewing as fast as I possibly could to get it down. It had a very bad aftertaste, but I’m glad I tried it. I definitely won’t need to eat them again yet I enjoyed watching Poleak and the bus driver chow down from the huge bag up front. Guess I wouldn’t be a good contestant on the Fear Factor or anything.

Dinner was way more appetizing. We went to a great restaurant on the main drag in Siem Reap. You have to remind yourself you are in Cambodia in this city- everyone is a tourist visiting Angkor. Dinner also came with a wonderful traditional Khmer dance show. After enjoying curry yet again we walked around a night market. This was my kind of market: full of colorful products that were high quality and not crowded. I got excited to go back another night to make some purchases :)