2014/15 Biking Southeast Asia Daily Snippet

20 February, Skun to Kampong Thom, 90km
Chantrearaksmey Guesthouse 28,000KHR ($7)

OK, it’s official. I’m a wuss. I have a horror of spiders. Not all spiders, not even poisonous spiders, but spiders with a pendulous abdomen. These are so roundly revolting, they give me the heebie jeebies. I knew before we arrived in Skun that I would be unable to eat tarantula belly, therefore. Especially after reading that “... it contains a brown paste consisting of organs, possibly eggs, and excrement”. Finding that Skun’s arachnid bellies were smaller than anticipated did nothing to change my mind. So... I munched my way through three or four legs, crunchy and flavoured with chilli oil. Then apprehensively broke open the thorax. Finding it wet inside, I simply could not put it in my mouth. As I said, I’m a wuss... “Cambodians have hunted spiders for food and for traditional medicine for generations. However, spiders became a widespread source of food in Cambodia in the mid-1970s, when the starvation brought on by the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime left people with few other options for survival.” (The Diplomat)

It poured with rain in the night so the road to Kampong Thom was initially covered in a slimy paste of wet dust. Of the 90km we cycled today, 80km was in really bad nick. Once the mud had dried again to fine dust, we spent much of the day with the burn of it in our eyes, inhaling it until our teeth and tongues were coated. At times the traffic disturbed so much dust that drivers turned on their lights to see and be seen in the fog-like conditions.