Early Morning Market - Phnom Penh.

At 3.30am this morning I ventured out with  Dararith to a night market. He is the man in charge of cooking the meals for the NGO that I'm at here in Phnom Penh. He does this journey everyday, leaving at 3.45AM and getting back at about 7AM after buying enough food for lunch and dinner for over 330 people.

< < I took this video by a group of children who were laboriously descaling fish 

Apparently by Dararith, the earlier you go the cheaper it is. We travelled there with two students to help carry the goods. One student also drove the motorbike on which we had a cart attached to put the goods and also for us to sit on (see above photo)

She's knackered.

The market was huge, and not for the faint hearted. There were a lot of strange sights and smells - some more pleasant than others. I saw dead pigs being carted around on the back of mopeds, chickens dangling by their necks from every spare space on the stalls and women ferociously chopping away at huge chunks of meat.

Those chicken's have had it! xD

 I didn't know where the market began or ended, it was a complete maze of streets. Seemingly there was a section for each product - i.e. one for vegetables, one for fish and another for chicken/pork/beef etc. It had rained before we arrived so the floor was completely muddy and everybody was slipping everywhere. 

Choppin' away

I didn't see another western face in sight during the 2.5 hours we were there (which was great) - I was drawing quite a lot of attention to myself with my photo taking, that's for sure. I've been to many markets in foreign countries, but this one has definitely been the most fascinating - I was exhausted after leaving, but that probably had something to do with the two hours of sleep I had before arrival.

I took this photo at about 6am just as the sun was rising - It was beautiful.

Dararith and I, on the way back.

Besos,

StevieG. x