Growing up in a Chinese household, you tend you get fed some weird and wonderful things - cubed pig's blood, pig ears and sea cucumber to name a few. Thankfully for me, hot pot (while not being that weird) was also one of those things. 

We were lucky enough to have a electric hot pot at home (which isn't unlike an electric frypan really) - it was a garish green colour on the outside and would be placed in the middle of the dinner table, with an assortment of meat, seafood, vegetables and noodles sitting around it just waiting to be cooked. I remember the worst thing being how long it took for the broth to heat back up after you'd dropped some pork or seafood in (mum and dad said the water had to boil again before it was good to eat), but it was always worth the wait!

so we went and checked out the Royal Thai Embassy's 11th Annual Thai Food and Cultural Festival today (along with most of canberra, it seemed!). as always, it was a busy affair of massaman beef, pad thai, mussel omelettes, satay sticks, and mango sticky rice, not to mention the free flowing chang and singha beers - had i known they were selling for $4 i would've made more of a day of it!

the main stage area also kept everyone entertained in between courses, with constant rotations of cultural performances that ranged from traditional dancing (who knew you could see ladyboys in yarralumla...) to muay thai and stick fighting. if you haven't been to this great event - don't miss out next year! 

as we headed west out of phnom penh towards the small town of battambang (about 100km from the thai border), the dusty, pothole-ridden back streets of the city turned into a super-green expanse of countryside. it didn't matter that our bus was playing video clips of cambodian pop music ( google 'khmer rap boyz') or that the driver didn't lay off the horn for the entire 5 hour trip - nothing could draw your attention from the view out the window.