For my very first day of year 2012, we went for a ride to Oudong, the ancient royal capital of the Kindgom. I love going to Oudong, on the way, we pass by a disappearing beautiful village, the kind of places that seems to exist only in dreams, traditional houses, ricefields just harvested, old ladies in white blouses and black pants going to the pagodas and no plastic bags and dump sites for rubbish. It is the season of the prahok so we stopped at Kompong Luang on the way back.
Fishermen live on the river. They go in these small boats which come back full of small fishes. This community on the photo is of Vietnamese origin.
People come to the boat to choose for the fishes
The net they use to catch the fishes - they are very small fishes, that we use for prahok
One can also buy from the wholesalers.
Taking the fishes to a truck to send them somewhere else.
The villagers still continue to prepare tons of fishes under their houses, fishes spread on the ground, sometimes a plastic sheet but most of the time, filled with the dirt. They cut the head and the tail. The village of Kompong Luang is a Cham (muslim) village.
The heads and the tails are sold to factories which make is fed to stock animals .
Children also help their families. There are just so many fishes this year. The sellers told us that this is because the illegal fishing lots in Siem Reap have been shut down and all the fishes have been released.
The fishes are left to dry under the sun, then put in a jar with salt (about 7-8 kgs for 10 kg of fishes) and after 2 months, the prahok is ready.
Seeing all this has not deterred us from buying the fresh fishes from the boats, 7000 riels (1.75 US$) per kilo, we bought 4 kgs, about 17 pieces. Each piece measures about 30 cm long (12 inches).
