Yum Yum

Even on the beach there was hierarchy amoung the hawkers. The kids who went to English school were in a better position than those who did not. The kids worked in pairs or groups of 3 while the older women, who spoke much less English, tended to work alone. Most of these people lived in Sihanoukville. At the bottom of the beach food chain were the young children who tended to be wearing dirty clothes and carried large rice bags which they filled with cans and plastic water bottles they collected from the tourists on the beach. These kids probably came from the shacks that lined the rock road on the way to the beach.

Our hearts went out to these children who ranged in age from maybe 5-10 and were both girls and boys, but they tended to hang in groups of 3 or 4 and were separated by gender. It is unlikely that they went to school at all, and they knew only enough English to ask permission to take the cans or bottles sitting around a beach chair. What struck us was their beautiful smiles and the fact that they always said thank you when given a recyclable. Phyl and I started saving our water bottles and cans, even bringing those from the room to the beach with us in the morning so that we could give them to the children. There seemed to be a rule that the kids did not go past the beach chairs and did not take things from the garbage cans under the 'cabanas'.

We noticed on our first day that Victoria and Tom were always surrounded by kids.

G- Vic, why are the kids always around you?

Vic- We bought them treats and Tom let's them play with his phone.

P- What a great idea to buy them treats.  We'll get some when we go to the store.

Vic - I think they're hungry.  Sometimes we buy them bags of fruit.

G- Yes, we've already done that.  Squid too.

When Vic & Tom left, we became the only 'yum-yum' ladies on the beach. Throughout the day the kids would approach us and say, “yum-yum?” We would hand out one treat a day to each kid who asked. It was heartwarming the way one child, having learned of the treats, would bring others so they too could have a treat. What most impressed us is that they understood that each kid could only have 1 treat per day and they were very honest and did not take more than one.

Sometimes we'd buy fruit from Oun or from the older lady who would stand, at the foot our our chairs, and implore us, with her big, brown, sad eyes to buy her fruit. Over the 2 weeks we built up quasi relationships with the beach hawkers and if we said no thank you, they would not press us. Sometimes we would buy, but not each of the numerous time they'd ask us throughout the day.

We confess that, although we didn't enjoy being asked to buy 25 times per day, we did love the freshness and availability of the beach foods, and we had a wide range of options, delivered to our beach chairs.

fruit – carried on the head, on a large, flat, woven, palm leaf disc. Usually pineapples, bananas, dragon fruit, mango, and papaya. The fruit was cut, at your chair, and placed into a small bag, ($2.00) or large bag, ($3.00).



squid – 2 squid ladies walked the beach carrying a long wooden pole over one shoulder. On each side of the pole hung a metal bowl, one filled with squid on skewers, dipping sauce, styrofoam containers, and extra charcoal, the other contained a clay pot filled with lit charcoal and covered by a grill. The squid lady was always pre-cooking some squid, but would sit and add more as needed or cook them longer upon request. These squid (10 for $1.00) were delicious!



boiled crabs – large, spotted crabs that had been boiled and still warm from the sun. The lady would pre- open them so you'd only have to crack the body in half and dig out the meat.  (5 for $3.00)

Langoustines – grilled in a seasoning. Upon order, they were opened, the meat cut so that it would easily come out of the shell, and squirted with lime. The flavor was good, but they tended to be dry.  (5 for $1.00)



Spring rolls – dangerous because the veggies were fresh and definitely washed in tap water, but yummy
(5 for $1.00)

Finally, all of the restaurants served freshly grilled seafood and potatoes; actual potatoes, not french fries.  We ate, for the first time, marlin, which is a beautiful, white, sweet, flakey fish.  We hope to be able to eat it again.