Month: March 2020

Cambodian Delight

BAT IN BAGUETTE, AND OTHER LOCAL DELICACIES

If you thought your office cafeteria sucks, think again. The snacks on display at the afternoon markets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia would – in comparison – make an overcooked Broccoli seem like a juicy Porterhouse. Caramelized Grasshoppers? That’s for the feeble-hearted! Are you brave enough to try a boiled Chicken embryo – beak and feathers included? Or perhaps a deep-fried Tarantula?

Yes, we’ve tried them all, and somehow lived to tell the tale.
(Perhaps because we skipped the raw bats…)

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How high is too high?

Your car might handle it, but can you?

WE DROVE THE WORLD’S TALLEST PAVED ROAD TO FIND OUT

It’s cold, and bright, and dusty, and Beige – so Beige. It’s also flat. Apart from two hills in the distance – one of them smoking, there’s almost nothing to break the endless monotony. I read the plaque with the little Spanish I can still master from my days in Cuba. It says the small smoking hill is actually a 5,976 meter-high mountain called Sabancaya. As it turns out, the modest hill also happens to be the most active volcano in Peru. The one near it is 6,300m, but dormant.

Welcome to the world’s highest highway, where the term “perspective” gets a whole new meaning. Its the tallest place on Earth accessible by a standard road car – that is, if your road car engine can breathe at a height of 4,910 meters above sea level, and of course, if you can as well.

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