Saturday evening we had some more delicious food in the night market area and jumped on a tuktuk to Phare, the Cambodian circus.
Tasha had prompted us to purchase the tickets online a few weeks ago as she had read all about them in an AirAsia magazine and they did seem like something that should not be missed while in Siem Reap.
Phare in a social project in Cambodia that works with young people and trains them in circus tricks.
We turned up at the circus tent and had a little look at the cute gift shop before being seated. Our seats were inside an old school circus tent in a circle around the main stage.
The show we went to see was about a girl during the Khmer Rouge period and how she still had nightmares but was moving on with her life and begin to trust people again.
I had no clue what to expect I didn't know if it would be like cirque du solei and they would be hanging from the roof of the tent or if it would be flame throwers and magic tricks. It was in fact none of these. The best way to describe it is that is was like watching a gymnastic routine with drama, comedy and immense skill.
All the moves were performed using their bodies and each other with very little props.
There were many parts of the show where my mouth was wide open in shock of what they were able to do.
After 75 minutes the show was over and the audience were standing clapping, it was a wonderful way to spend our Saturday evening.
Part of the drama used during the show included an artist who painted three images on canvas while the performance was taking place. The lead role explained at the end that they were up for sale. Lauren went over to talk to them and before we knew it she had paid $100 and purchased one of the paintings.
It was such a great thing her buying the painting as we had watched the guy actually paint it there and then, also the money goes to such a good cause. It was also lovely to see how happy the young man who painted it was to see how much Lauren loved it. If anyone is in Siem Reap book to see Phare, I cannot praise it enough!
On Sunday we split into two as we all wanted to do different things. Lauren and Tasha went on a cycle ride through a nearby village and absolutely love it, Lauren especially was so excited telling us about it later that evening. Nathan, Alison and I went to a nearby village for a Khmer cooking class which we also loved.
The class started with a walk in a village, meeting a local family and seeing how locals cook and what they use.
Then we went to the cooking school which is an outdoor area in an amazing garden where all the fresh produce is grown.
It was beautiful to be cooking surrounded by mango trees, lemongrass plants and herbs.
We started by making the paste for our main course Amok Fish! It was really interesting to see how much of each ingredients goes into the curry paste and also how much you need to chop it and then smash it with the pestle and mortar. I never would have cut the ingredients so finely or smashed for as long if I was following a recipe at home so straight away I learnt a lot about what I was doing wrong. Never again will I buy curry paste in a jar!
Once the paste was made we heated it and added other ingredients to end up with a beautiful Amok Fish dish which we then left to one side while we made desert.
Desert was not for me, we rolled flour and water into balls and then pushed palm sugar in to the centre and boiled. When they were ready they were sprinkled with coconut.
My favourite dish was the starter, a green mango and chicken salad. I can quite honestly say it was the most fantastic salad I've ever tasted. We started by shredding our mango with a clever peeler (which Nathan, Alison and I have all purchased when I saw them in a market in Phnom Penh). The green mango, carrot and herbs are all tossed together. Then we made a dressing of peanuts, oil, garlic, shallots and lime which we then dressed the chicken with and tossed it all together. It was unbelievable and will probably become my favourite dish to create to take to BBQ's this summer.
We then sat down to eat our creations! I was so stuffed I only managed to get through half of my main course. We got given recipes of everything we made which we already cannot wait to get home and try.
Al, Nathan and I went for a walk in the afternoon after our cooking school while the girls were still out on their cycle and randomly ran into the guys from Phare performing outside a fancy hotel.
It was great to see another 15 minutes of circus acts.
This time they pulled me from the audience to help out. I was scared one of them was going to make me climb on something but luckily they didn't.
We waved goodbye and headed for a fruit juice in a local cafe.
That evening we had some more delicious Khmer food. Lauren and I both had a sweet and sour fish soup, which I also must learn how to make. Tasha had fried rice in a pineapple, which looked really fun.
We had cocktails at some of the places we had read about like pub street, Mrs Wongs and Laundry.
We all loved Siem Reap!