Cambodia: Shopping and other entertainment

Even though I usually get souvenirs in most places that I travel to, I have wanted to go to Cambodia not only for its sights, but for its amazing craft markets. Indeed, they did not disappoint. Braving the evening heat on Tuesday evening, we went to the Old Market in Siem Reap and were right away emerged into the plethora of scarves, shirts, placemats, etc---this is where I started going crazy, but still tried to hold the screws in my head from coming off by only buying a few things. Our next stop was the Night Market, which turned out to be cheaper and had more interesting things. This is where those screws in my head got loose, and I started buying everything in sight. My boss, who is a marathon shopper, was doing her usual: maintain her sanity while remembering to buy for every member of her family and circle of friends. After discovering more stalls that we simply didn’t have the energy to visit, we went to find a good spot for dinner. On the way there, we stopped by one of the numerous blow-up kiddie pools where for about $2-3 you could stick your feet in and have the special kind of (flesh eating) fish get rid of the calluses on your feet. I didn’t want to risk getting a fungal infection so I just watched my boss getting her feet “massaged” by the fish of “Dr. Fish.” According to her, it felt pretty weird at first and then got better, and her feet were smoother afterwards.
We found an amazing place for dinner…a little hole in the wall called Khmer Kitchen that turned out to be a great find. For about $3 per dish, we had outstanding Khmer food accompanied by delicious lemongrass tea.
When we returned to the hotel, we decided to lay out our purchases (that is, my boss and I☺), and after realizing that I sort of outshopped the champion of market shopping, my boss declared her night as “inadequate,” and we made plans to go back to the Night market. We did go back again, and even though I promised myself not to get anything else, I did end up buying more things before another delicious dinner at Khmer Kitchen.