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Tag: Banteay Meanchey

New Website with more Khmer food and experiences

More Khmer food and experiences

Written by André Ruys on . Posted in Khmer food.

It took us about a month of hard work with our friends at Angkor Design, but finally we are here: Our new website about popular Khmer food, great hosts and Cambodian culture is online. What’s new?

New Website with more Khmer food and experiences

We will focus more on the experience guests can get when visit a host. Dine With The Locals gives travelers a full experience of life in Cambodia, cooking in Cambodia and learn about the daily life in Cambodia. That’s why added the experience section: Each host offers something special beside the Khmer food and we will get deeper into in this part of the website. More experiences in Cambodia coming soon.

We also give you a faster and easier way to jump right to the city where you are (or plan to go). So far we are in Battambang, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Beantey Meanchey. But we are working hard to get hosts in Kampot and Mondulkiri next. 

Search for Khmer food and Cambodian culture

We now have a search, in case you are interested in s special kind of meal or Khmer food. Just type in what you are looking for. If you cannot find what you are looking for we will get a message and will improve this in the near future. 

Another big change is the booking interface. We are partner with Bokun now, a booking engine recently bought by Tripadvisor. It gives us more exposure to international markets and also state-of-the-art technology and interfaces. We also have instant booking now, so we can confirm a booking for Khmer food and experience immediately. There is still s small chance that our host is for unforeseeable reasons unavailable. In this case we will get in touch with you and offer an alternative.

We hope you like our new design. If you find something that’s not working, please let us know. We appreciate any feedback and suggestions, how we can improve. Finally a special thank to Andy from Angkor Design and our Chief Technology Consultant Sinal from Bayonia. Both did great job to get the new design up and running. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Experience local life in Cambodia

Written by André Ruys on . Posted in Experience Cambodia, Khmer food, local life.

One of the most recent trends in the travel industry are authentic experiences. While overtourism let travelers reconsider to go to the hotspots in a country, they may change to lesser known, but more individual destinations like experience local life in Cambodia when you visit families. The travelmarket report recently wrote: “More and more travelers are demanding an “authentic” travel experience, a trend that experts say plays into the hands of experienced, high-touch travel agents who can help consumers sift through the vast array of opportunities the world offers. According to a recent Expedia survey, 76% of baby boomers rate experiencing authentic local culture as “the most important” aspect of their decision making, while 62% of Generation X consumers rate local culture most important.”

Cooking together is a great experience of local life in Cambodia
Cooking together is a great experience of local life in Cambodia

If you are looking for authentic experiences, you may have to look very close. Nowadays many classic tour packages are just wrapped in new paper. Village tours and cooking classes, food tours and home stays are all a kind of authentic and locals experience. But the are also organized, and quite often there is not much time to interact with locals. Also, interpreters and tour guides may help to communicate, but can be a barrier as well. We are a cooking class with families. 

Time needed to experience local life in Cambodia

At Dine With The Locals we do not provide guided tours. We let you have the full experience with the host family, without interference. Our hosts are not working in the tourism industry, their houses are private and not open to the public. Also, the tour itself is private: It’s just you, the people traveling with you and a Khmer family. If you are curious enough, you will get a much deeper understanding of the daily life, the dreams and challenges of locals in Cambodia. Dine With The Locals means that you cook with locals, eat with locals and experience local life in Cambodia.

 

Rice harvest at the organic farm in Battambang
Rice harvest at the organic farm in Battambang

You can stay one or two hours, and even longer if the hosts have time. We had guests staying for 4 hours with our host Vannak Khun in Phnom Penh and talking about modern art. We had even requests if guests can stay overnight at our host in Banteay Meanchey, because it was so beautiful there (we do not provide accommodation yet).

So much to learn from locals

One great example of local life is the use of the mortar. In Khmer its called tabal, and we use it as well in the official name of our company tabalr technologies Co. Ltd. It is one of the most common tools used in Khmer cuisine. In former times, it was the only way to blend spices and other ingredients. But even now, in the age of electricity, most Khmer will use the mortar instead of the blender. The latter is mostly used to make fruit shakes. When you make the Kroeung spice paste with your hands, crashing the lemongras and tumeric until it becomes a thick paste, you understand what local life is.