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Published: December 22nd 2009
Proper Bacon and fried eggs with fried cubes of potato and onion for brekkie then the moto chap turns up 30 minutes late - no surprise there, and off to the market.
Banlung Market is a big one as Banlung is the provincial capitol. The 'minority peoples'as the khmers call them are here in force selling all sorts of herbs and plants gathered from the jungle where many of them live, vegetables like potatoes and green stick beans they've grown, papaya and bananas, tamarind still in the pod straight from the tree, wild ginger root, rows of small fish six to a bamboo skewer and then smoked over a fire, blocks of shredded tobacco. The ínority peoples'don't look khmer and speak their own languages. My moto driver can understand odd words and they seem to communicate with each other on a very basic level.
In the large fish and meat section the conditions are dire! Rubbish strewn muddy floors and produce kept in dirty plastic tubs or displayed on wooden plank tables. No health and hygeine regs here - YET! Some of the stall holders make some attempt to keep the flies away waving homemade fly swatters about - these are black bin bags tied to the end of a stick. I spot a live eel making a bid for freedom across the mud floor but he is recaptured and put back into the bucket with the other live fish. Keeping the fish alive not only ensures freshness but it also means that any you don't sell can be kept for another day. The poor people here don't have food freezers like we do. Cans of drinks and bottles of water are kept cold in large orange plastic bins with lids and filled with crushed ice. I've seen large blocks of ice being delivered by moto to shops and houses for this purpose.
It is now after 09:30 and there are lots of children of school age in the market and not in the classroom. apparently school has 2 sessions a day between 07:30 - 11:30 and 13:00 - 16:00 and they are supposed to go to both but in reality they go to one or the other.
Tomorrow I start a 3 day trek in the Varichey National Park so another early night is needed.
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davanna
dave suddaby
interesting nige!!
sounds like evry market i experienced across india apart from the fact that at least your fish products are alive!! I must admit tho that after many years of eating fish from what appear to be very inadequately kept markets, i always found the fish good and fresh despite heat flies and general squalor! good luck mate