Farmers carry produce to the market in Siem ReapThere’s no better way to discover the real Cambodia than by mixing a river safari with a culinary odyssey, says Richard Strange.
Stéphane Delourme, still in his chef’s whites, is smoking a cigarette on the terrace of Pacharan, Phnom Penh’s elegant riverside restaurant. The lightning from an electric storm illuminates his face. He is exhausted but content. He raises a glass of white wine and toasts no one in particular. “We did it! We did it!” he repeats, in his irresistible French accent.
As the culmination of a two-week long Cambodian adventure, part-river safari, part-culinary odyssey, Delourme has just cooked a five-course dinner for 60 guests at one of the city’s hottest restaurants, and the evening has been a triumph.
For nine years, Brittany-born Delourme has been head chef at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall. Wishing to broaden his culinary horizons, Delourme persuaded Stein to let him take a two-week sabbatical and join a Culinary Tour of Cambodia, organised by the Wild Frontiers, a tour company that specialises in edgy, off-the-beaten-track destinations and themes.
Stéphane Delourme, still in his chef’s whites, is smoking a cigarette on the terrace of Pacharan, Phnom Penh’s elegant riverside restaurant. The lightning from an electric storm illuminates his face. He is exhausted but content. He raises a glass of white wine and toasts no one in particular. “We did it! We did it!” he repeats, in his irresistible French accent.
As the culmination of a two-week long Cambodian adventure, part-river safari, part-culinary odyssey, Delourme has just cooked a five-course dinner for 60 guests at one of the city’s hottest restaurants, and the evening has been a triumph.
For nine years, Brittany-born Delourme has been head chef at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall. Wishing to broaden his culinary horizons, Delourme persuaded Stein to let him take a two-week sabbatical and join a Culinary Tour of Cambodia, organised by the Wild Frontiers, a tour company that specialises in edgy, off-the-beaten-track destinations and themes.
The plan was to start in Siem Reap, the nearest town to the temples of Angkor Wat. It was here, at the elegant but funky FCC hotel, a fine colonial-style establishment whose cool contemporary-ethnic rooms are the perfect retreat, and whose bar is lively but not raucous, that I first met Delourme.
Our party of nine included Andrew Ridgeley, formerly George Michael’s partner in the Eighties group Wham! and his ebullient girlfriend Keren Woodward, of Bananarama.
An unashamed gourmet, Ridgeley is both venerable and serious, a surfer in his adopted Cornwall who has become a prominent local environmentalist in the cause of water quality. Keren, still singing, still laughing, is the girl whom time left alone – gorgeous, voluptuous and enormous fun.
Our happy band was completed by Peter O’Sullivan, the tour leader from Wild Frontiers. A former musician, O’Sullivan first went out to Cambodia in the early Nineties to clear landmines. He has been going back ever since, as a journalist, tour guide and researcher for Wild Frontiers, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of Khmer culture and politics.
The temple visits done, our time in Siem Reap was spent trawling the vast fruit, vegetable and fish markets for local produce with our Cambodian guide and translator Vudthy (pronounced “Watti”).
The fertile Cambodian land produces mountains of fresh food, and more than 300 species of freshwater fish are hauled daily from the Tonle Sap lake and river.
As part of our tour we enjoyed a virtuoso four-hour cookery lesson from Sour Vong, head chef at the Shinta Mani hotel. The following day we tried our newly learnt skills at an orphanage on the edge of town run by Vudthy and his brother.
We set about chopping, grinding and mixing, and cooked a simple lunch version of Sour Vong’s Fish Amok. The meal was devoured in a fraction of the time that it took to prepare, and the boys then challenged the “White Giants” (us) to a kickabout in the school yard.
We ended our stay in Siem Reap with a celebratory dinner at the Meric restaurant in the swanky Hotel de la Paix, an exotic degustation menu which featured dried snake with green mango, and grilled stuffed frog, among other Khmer specialities.
At first light we boarded the minibus for the lakeside port of Chong Khneas, a picture-book floating village inhabited mainly by Vietnamese fishing families. Even at 7am the place was seething with activity, and eager porters swarmed to our bus to manhandle our luggage to our waiting boat.
La Cougoule (it means “pretty girl” in Marseillaise slang), a 90ft wooden former river freighter, was bought by its owner, Pierre Legros, five years ago. Now fully renovated, it elegantly plies its trade between Chong Khneas on the north-western end of Tonle Sap lake to Kompong Chhnang at the south-eastern extremity. That’s the idea, anyway; this was Legros’s maiden voyage.
As we pushed off from the jetty, gliding past mangrove and the floating timber houses where the early-morning fishing catch was being brought in, the expanse of water ranged ahead of us to the horizon.
Tonle Sap lake, in effect a vast floodplain, is more than 100 miles long and provides 75 per cent of Cambodia’s annual fish catch; downstream it feeds the mighty Mekong river.
The skipper explained that the water level was up 30ft at this time of year. What looked like floating vegetation were actually treetops. We were floating through the canopy of the submerged forest – a surreal but exhilarating experience.
Sometimes a fisherman would drift noiselessly into view, checking his nets, or fixing a trap, his coolie hat protecting his head and shoulders from the fierce midday sun. A shouted greeting would confirm that he was Vietnamese, not Khmer. The two tribes have been uneasy neighbours for centuries. A wave, then onward.
We slid ever farther through the soupy brown water. Occasionally the surface was broken by the head of a river snake. “The more of the body you see on the surface, the more poisonous it is,” Vudthy told us helpfully.
On board, a miraculous lunch appeared, prepared on the rudimentary gas burner. Fish cakes, green tomatoes with shrimp and glass noodles, fish amok and rice. We sat on the deck, round a low wooden table, and feasted like royalty. Life does not get much better than time spent on a boat with good company, good food and good weather.
As this was the first outing for Legros, the estimated duration of the trip was rather speculative. He imagined that we would reach our destination in seven hours. In fact we did not make landfall for 16 hours, and in that time, lounging with drinks on the deck, we saw the most wonderful sunset and, later, shooting stars in a sky free of artificial light.
At one point we strayed into a floating village, unearthly and bizarre in the total darkness, the sounds of dogs and children and a television set carrying through the still of the night.
The layout of the village was so complex and tight that, once in, it was impossible for Legros to manoeuvre the boat out again unaided.
With a combination of Khmer, French and Vietnamese phrases he summoned help in the form of a motor skiff with a tie line. Its owner towed us back out to open water and pointed us on our way through the velvet darkness. In all my years of travelling I have rarely felt so far from home as during that exchange.
When we finally made Kompong Chhnang and slung our hammocks, an operatic electric storm picked up, which tossed and pitched the boat for the next two hours. We spent a fitful night buffeted at our mooring, but morning was a revelation.
Kompong Chhnang is a teeming fishing town, and as we peered out into the sunshine we found that our boat was the centre of amused attention. An animated group had gathered on the quayside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the new arrivals having breakfast.
That afternoon we took a fishing boat to see the floating nets and the fish traps. Strung between stilted houses, the traps are designed so the fish can swim in, but not out. When the level of the lake drops in February or March, the haul can be picked by hand from the traps and transported to quayside market, where all types of spanking fresh fish lie stacked like silver bullion.
Less appetising, at least to a Western palate, are the 21-day-old duck eggs. The unsuspecting snacker finds that as well as what remains of the hard-boiled yolk – cooking time is three hours – the shell contains a partly developed duckling – beak, feathers and all. In the name of research Delourme tried a little, while the rest of us looked on aghast. The local children encouraged him to finish it, telling him in exaggerated mime that it would make him strong and energetic, but even the intrepid Frenchman was beaten by this offering.
From Kompong Chhnang we drove overland past rice fields, sugar palm and cashew plantations, to Phnom Penh, where we met Ant Alderson, the British co-owner of the FCC hotels in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.
The FCC, formerly known as the Foreign Correspondents Club, enjoys a prime riverfront location with enviable views up and downstream. The elegant, pillared dining room, in cream and dark wood, cooled by ceiling fans, is straight out of Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham – both two former patrons.
Peter O’Sullivan suggested that a gala evening at one of the FCC’s restaurants, featuring Delourme as guest chef, might be a good way to round off the trip. Alderson agreed, hammered out a few details, and a date was set.
The final leg of our expedition took us west, to the coastal towns of Kampot and Kep, near the Vietnamese border. Kampot was once a thriving market town, the main port of entry for imported goods, and a stronghold of the Chinese mercantile class.
The town also boasts some fine art deco and modernist architecture, though much was destroyed by shelling and mortar fire from the Khmer Rouge in the Seventies.
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