Being on the coast, fishing is a major industry for the people of the Kampot region – and while we continue to marvel at the fact that there are any fish left (there’s no such thing as a size limit here) the industry sustains many people both personally and commercially.

Our little off-sider Phoas (liaison/admin at CLS) came with us for a day at Sianhoukville (further down the coast) on Sunday and on the way back she asked if we could stop so she could buy some crabs for her family for dinner.

The arrival of “barangs” created quite a kerfuffle – it’s not what you’d call a tourist destination – and we were ushered with great ceremony down behind the shop front to the little processing area along a very rickety dock area (terrified with every step that my big barang legs would go straight through the boards and into the murky – and I DO mean murky – depths below) where the crabs were being unloaded fresh from the boats to be sorted into sizes (again no size limits – some were only as big as a 20c piece).  Phoas selected 1.5kg of live crabs – for which she paid $US12.

There was great interest in us – and as usual, the kids were fascinated by my camera and insisted I keep taking their photo.  I was happy to oblige.

But I’ll be eating chicken for a while, I think…..

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