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Behind the Scenes at Jaan Bai Restaurant in Battambang. Jaan Bai, Battambang, Cambodia. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

Behind the Scenes at Jaan Bai Restaurant in Battambang

In October 2013, we went behind the scenes at Jaan Bai restaurant in Battambang to cover the opening of the Cambodian Children’s Trust’s new social enterprise hospitality training restaurant. We spent a lot of time in the kitchen.

Supported by Australians Chef David Thompson of Nahm Bangkok and restaurateur John Fink of Quay restaurant in Sydney, a stylish little restaurant in the heart of Battambang is set to be a game-changer for Cambodia’s sleepy second city. This is the story we wrote about our experience behind the scenes at Jaan Bai restaurant just before its opening.

Behind the Scenes at Jaan Bai Restaurant in Battambang

The second Chef David Thompson turns off the gas, spoons are swiftly whipped from shoulder pockets of stained chef jackets, dipped into the pot of pungent curry, and promptly popped into mouths. Eyelids close, brows arch, eyes roll, and lips curl up at the corners in delight.

Yet there’s one nose of the dozen or so in the restaurant kitchen that twitches and scrunches. “Too spicy!” the young Cambodian cook declares, when I look at her. Screwing up her pretty face, she flaps a hand in front of her mouth, yet dips the utensil in again.

While the girl’s colleagues lean against kitchen benches and freshly painted walls, jotting down recipe notes into small spiral pads, scrappy pieces of paper, and even a kitchen napkin, the aspiring young chef with the big smile and shiny black hair spoons more fiery sauce into her mouth, which she frantically fans, rapidly sucking in cool air. “Too spicy!” she exclaims again, continuing to dip her spoon, until the sauce has all but disappeared.

Chef Thompson’s uncompromisingly authentic Thai food — gleaned from old family recipes in heritage ‘cookbooks’ (in fact, funeral memorial books) that he has long collected and long-lost dishes which he has travelled Thailand to seek out — has that effect on people. While the young cook, used to gentler Cambodian curries, makes her notes about Thompson’s famously fiery jungle curry, her friends gather around the legendary chef for the next lesson.

Thompson turns a colossal live crab over on a bench, its back down and legs wriggling in the air, before stepping aside. Cambodian chef Mohm Meah, the young woman who will head this new kitchen, has just spent one month training at Thompson’s Bangkok restaurant Nahm, voted number one on the 2014 edition of the highly regarded Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list, collated by Restaurant magazine.

Without hesitation Chef Mohm takes the cleaver and with a loud “THWACK!” kills the crab instantly. Thompson throws the crab into the wok, shell and all, along with ingredients Chef Matthew Albert has been preparing.

Albert is a former head chef of Nahm London, another of Thompson’s enterprises and the world’s first Michelin-starred Thai restaurant. He is soon to helm Thompson’s new Singapore restaurant. In the interim, he has been here a week teaching the young staff in this Cambodian kitchen.

Sparks fly and flames shoot into the air as Thompson continuously shifts the wok over the burner, ensuring the crab is smothered in sauce and evenly cooked. Feeling the blazing heat scorch my cheeks, I step back through the glass doorway onto the footpath outside. The young cooks, who have encircled the chef to watch his every move, don’t flinch.

We are in the kitchen of Jaan Bai, which means ‘rice bowl’ in Khmer, a day before the opening of the stylish new hospitality training restaurant, bar and gallery in the Cambodian city of Battambang, the capital of an agriculturally rich province regarded as the country’s rice bowl.

The stainless steel of the new kitchen gleams in the late afternoon light, its clean lines and sparkling glass wall in stark contrast to the gravelly street outside that sends dust our way each time a tuk tuk or motorbike crunches by.

Around a two and half hour drive from Siem Reap and five hours from Phnom Penh, the riverside city, which feels more like a country town, might seem like a strange place for a chic new eatery in a renovated French colonial-era shop-house.

Perhaps more surprising is that the restaurant has such high profile advisors. Not only Thompson, a celebrated Australian chef who has made a career from cooking some of the world’s most authentic Thai cuisine, but also John Fink who is also in the kitchen, photographing and videotaping the action while tasting dishes and testing drinks. Fink is the owner of Sydney’s Quay, one of Australia’s finest restaurants, on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list for five years running.

Jaan Bai is the brainchild of Battambang-based Australian Tara Winkler, founding director of NGO Cambodian Children’s Trust (CCT), established with Cambodian Jedtha Pon in 2007, after the two rescued 14 abused children from an orphanage. Since then CTT has assisted hundreds of vulnerable kids through foster care, family outreach, and a youth centre.

“We want to expand CCT’s work to include social enterprises that provide training and create jobs for underprivileged youths,” Winkler tells me, “And in time, help generate funds for CCT, reducing our reliance on donations. We decided on a restaurant as our first social enterprise, thanks to Fink, Thompson and Rolando Schirato from Vittoria Coffee, to create a public face for CCT, help boost the local economy, and bring more visitors to Battambang.”

It was Winkler, a friend of Fink’s, who got the restaurateur involved, and Fink who persuaded Thompson to contribute expertise to Battambang’s first training restaurant. They came for the launch and plan to return regularly to assist with the restaurant’s growth.

“Cambodia is a post-colonial, post-war country populated by some of the warmest and happiest people I have ever met in the world,” Fink explains. “Before that horrendous time with the Khmer Rouge, Battambang was a creative and cultural powerhouse, and there’s an East Berlin-feeling of enthusiasm emanating from the artists rebuilding their lives and careers.”

Home to the country’s largest performing arts school, birthplace of the quirky Phare Cambodian Circus, and several art galleries, Battambang is an emerging arts destination. Jaan Bai’s exterior has been decorated with vibrant murals by local artists and their paintings hang inside.

“It is simply the right thing to do,” says Thompson. “I mean these kids need a hand. History and politics has been cruel to the country and to them and their families. And yet they remain un-embittered and have a genuine gentle and hopeful attitude. I find that remarkable. I hope I could display such fortitude.”

Rolando Schirato doesn’t have the high profile that Thompson and Fink do, but as a senior executive of Australia’s 50 year-old Vittoria Coffee, he’s hugely respected. While tastings are underway in the kitchen, front-of-house is  busy. The builder is still working on the electrics, a cocktail trainer is organizing the bar, volunteers are decorating shelves, and Schirato is setting up a shiny new espresso machine.

The coffee machine is one of two that Vittoria Coffee has donated. The company has donated Jaan Bai’s first year of operating costs, helped set up the restaurant, and provided training to staff, locally and in Australia.

Schirato befriended Winkler after approaching her about volunteering. “We spoke about projects we’d been involved in,” he explains, “including one where Vittoria helped a rural Australian town build a community centre and cafe to build youth skills, in particular barista training. Tara hoped to do something similar in Battambang. That’s where it started.”

Also at the bar, restaurant manager Tom O’Sullivan is teaching eager young Cambodians to pull beers. O’Sullivan has a background in social enterprise cafés in Melbourne, Australia’s coffee capital, working at Kinfolk and managing The Mission Café.

“I realized the potential hospitality has to empower individuals and create positive change,” O’Sullivan tells me. “At Kinfolk we raised money for projects in developing countries. To have the opportunity to work with CCT in a developing country really exposes you to the need. It’s pretty motivating.”

O’Sullivan collaborated with Fink to develop the concept when the restaurateur visited Battambang in April 2013. He was ill in hospital at the time.

“I knew John was serious about making this work,” O’Sullivan reveals. “He was my first visitor, bedside, 40 degrees, no air-con, flies, no partitions between us and other patients in ICU, notepad was out, and we had our first brainstorm. A week later John emailed the notes. That was the catalyst for our business plan.”

O’Sullivan also accompanied Chef Mohm to Bangkok. A strong you woman, Mohm raised her young siblings and their cousins after her parents and aunt and uncle died, sacrificing her education to work to support them. It’s her turn now. While Mohm learnt how one of Asia’s best restaurant kitchens works, O’Sullivan discussed kitchen design and menu development with Thompson and Albert.

“If it wasn’t for them we’d probably have microwaves stacked from floor to ceiling,” he confides, “David and Matthew were key to us using local produce (grown in CCT gardens) to create a seasonal menu that captures the best of South East Asia, whilst leaning on some Western influences.”

The idea behind a modern pan-Asian menu, rather than Cambodian or even Thai cuisine, was to diversify trainees’ skills, making them more employable, as much as to please the different target audiences: Cambodians, expats and tourists. After Schirato, Fink, Thompson, and Albert leave, it will be O’Sullivan who manages the restaurant on a day to day basis and trains staff.

“I hope to train employees to the point where they can get a job anywhere in the world,” O’Sullivan says. “I’ve quickly learnt who the trainees are who want to learn. They’re the ones with little note pads, which they’ve made themselves, who write down things like: ‘make sure I say thank you coming jaan bai to the guests’ and ‘I really like new job, want to try very hard new job’.”

The whole of Battambang seems to be at Jaan Bai’s opening the next night, including CCT workers, kids and families. There is a Cambodian band, live painting, espresso cocktails, tasting portions of dishes, free-flowing cold beer, and dancing well into the night.

A few days later I ask O’Sullivan how he felt seeing people streaming into the beautiful restaurant and trying the fantastic food. “In the days leading up to the opening I’d worked 15 hours a day,” O’Sullivan confides. “On the day it was crazy.”

“But at 7pm we opened the doors. Guests were watching the CCT kids perform a welcome dance and I was pretty emotional,” he admits. “I had to go into the kitchen and pull myself together, wipe away the tears, and get on with the night. That’s why I do it. We’re finally open and I know this space is going to have a positive effect on so many people’s lives.”

Jaan Bai
Street 2, Battambang
Cambodia
www.cambodianchildrenstrust.org

This is a longer version of a story we had published in the January 2014 issue of Southeast Asia Globe.

Support our Cambodia Cookbook & Culinary History Book with a donation or monthly pledge on Patreon.

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About Lara Dunston

A travel and food writer who has experienced over 70 countries and written for The Guardian, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, National Geographic Traveller, Conde Nast Traveller, Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, DestinAsian, TIME, CNN, The Independent, The Telegraph, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, AFAR, Wanderlust, International Traveller, Get Lost, Four Seasons Magazine, Fah Thai, Sawasdee, and more, as well as authored more than 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, DK, Footprint, Rough Guides, Fodors, Thomas Cook, and AA Guides.

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  1. Frank says

    June 6, 2014 at 2:14 pm

    Well … I guess I know where I’m eating when I get to this place in Cambodia … missed it the last two time I was in the country!

  2. Lara Dunston says

    June 6, 2014 at 3:49 pm

    When were you here? It just opened in October. Definitely worth a meal or three. Most people who eat there once return again (and again) during their stay.

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Still looking for Christmas cooking inspo? Check o Still looking for Christmas cooking inspo? Check out our seafood recipe collection, especially if you celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve with a fish focused meal in the Southern Italian tradition, transformed by Italian-Americans into the Feast of the Seven Fishes, or like Australians, who celebrate Christmas in the sweltering summer, feast on seafood for Christmas Day lunch, we’ve got lots of easy seafood recipes for you.

Our recipes include a classic prawn cocktail, blini with smoked salmon, a ceviche-style appetiser, and devilled eggs with caviar. We’ve also got recipes for fish soup, seafood pies and pastas, salmon tray bake, and crispy salmon with creamy mashed potatoes.

You’ll find the recipes here: https://grantourismotravels.com/seafood-recipes-for-christmas-eve-and-christmas-day-menus/
(Link in bio if you’re seeing this on IG)

Merry Christmas if you’re celebrating!! 

#christmas #christmasfood #seafood #fish #recipes #christmasrecipes #foodstagram #foodblogger #food #foodlover #igfood #picoftheday #igfood #igfoodie #cooking #foodblog #food #foodstagram #instafood #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #grantourismo #grantourismotravels #xmas #merrychristmas #happychristmas
If you’re still looking for food inspo for Chris If you’re still looking for food inspo for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day meals, my smoked salmon ‘carpaccio’ recipe is one of dozens of recipes in this compilation of our best Christmas recipes (link below). 

The Christmas recipe compilation includes collections of our best Christmas breakfast recipes, best Christmas brunch recipes, best Christmas starter recipes, best Christmas cocktails, best Christmas dessert recipes, and homemade edible Christmas gifts and more.

My smoked salmon carpaccio recipe makes an easy elegant appetiser that’s made in minutes. If you’re having guests over, you can make the dish ahead by assembling the salmon, capers and pickled onions, and refrigerate it, then pour on the dressing just before serving. 

Provide toasted baguette slices and bowls of additional capers, pickles and dressing, so guests can customise their carpaccio. And open the bubbly!

You’ll find that recipe and many more Christmas recipes here: https://grantourismotravels.com/best-christmas-recipes/ (link in bio if you’re seeing this on IG)

Merry Christmas!! X

#christmas #christmasfood #recipes #christmasrecipes #foodstagram #salmon #smokedsalmon #foodblogger #food #foodlover #igfood #picoftheday #igfoodie #cooking #foodblog #food #foodstagram #instafood #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #recipedeveloper #writingacookbook #grantourismo #grantourismotravels 
#xmas #merrychristmas #happychristmas
If you haven’t visited our site in a while, I sh If you haven’t visited our site in a while, I shared a collection of recipes for homemade edible Christmas gifts — for condiments, hot sauces, chilli oils, a whole array of pickles, spice blends, chilli salt, furakake seasoning, and spicy snacks, such as our Cambodian and Vietnamese roasted peanuts. 

I love giving homemade edibles as gifts as much as I love receiving them. Who wouldn’t appreciate jars filled with their favourite chilli oils, hot sauces, piquant pickles, and spicy peanuts that loved-ones have taken the time to make? 

Aside from the gesture and affordability of gifting homemade edibles, you’re minimising waste. You can use recycled jars or if buying new mason jars or clip-top Kilner jars, you know they’ll get repurposed.

No need for wrapping, just attach some Christmas baubles or tinsel to the lid. I used squares of Cambodian kramas (cotton scarves), which can be repurposed as napkins or drink coasters, and tied a ribbon or two around the lids, and attached last year’s Christmas tree decorations to some.

You’ll find the recipes here: https://grantourismotravels.com/homemade-edible-christmas-gifts/ (link in bio if you’re seeing this on IG)

Yes, that’s Pepper... every time there’s a camera around... 

#christmasgiftideas #ediblegifts ##christmasfoodgifts #foodgifts #giftideas #homemadegifts #christmasfood #ediblegiftideas #hotsauce #chillisauce #sriracha #pickles #homemadepickles #recipes #foodstagram #foodblogger #food #foodlover #igfood 
#blackcat #blackcatsofinstagram #picoftheday 
#christmas #christmastree #xmas #merrychristmas #happychristmas #cambodia #siemreap
This crab omelette is a decadent eggs dish that’ This crab omelette is a decadent eggs dish that’s perfect if you’re just back from the fish markets armed with luxurious fresh crab meat. It’s a little sweet, a little spicy, and very, very moreish.

Our crab omelette recipe was one of our 22 most popular egg recipes of 2022 on our website Grantourismo and it’s no surprise. It’s appeared more times than any other egg recipes on our annual round-ups of most popular recipes since Terence launched Weekend Eggs when we launched Grantourismo in 2010.

If you’re an eggs lover, do check out the recipe collection. It includes egg recipes from right around the world, from recipes for classic kopitiam eggs from Singapore and Malaysia and egg curries from India and Myanmar to all kinds of egg recipes from Thailand, Japan, Korea, China, Mexico, USA, Australia, UK, and Ireland.

And do browse our Weekend Eggs archives for further eggspiration (sorry). We have hundreds of egg recipes from the 13 year-old series of recipes for quintessential egg dishes from around the world, which we started on our 2010 year-long global grand tour focused on slow, local and experiential travel. 

We’re hoping 2023 will be the year we can finally publish the Weekend Eggs cookbook we’ve talked about for years based on that series. After we can find a publisher for the Cambodia cookbook of course... :( 

Recipe collection here (and proper link to Grantourismo in our bio):
https://grantourismotravels.com/22-most-popular-egg-recipes-of-2022-from-weekend-eggs/

If you cook the recipe and enjoy it please let us know — we love to hear from you — either in the comments at the end of the recipe or share a pic with us here.

#recipe #recipes #eggs #eggslover #breakfasteggs #WeekendEggs #egg #breakfast #brunch #igfood #igfoodie #cooking #foodblog #food #foodstagram #instafood  #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #recipedeveloper #lookingforapublisher #writingacookbook  #grantourismo #grantourismotravels
I’m late to share this, but a few days ago Angko I’m late to share this, but a few days ago Angkor Archaeological Park, home to stupendous Angkor Wat, pictured, celebrated 30 years of its UNESCO World Heritage listing. 

That’s as good an excuse as any to put this magnificent, sprawling archaeological site on your travel list this year.

While riverside Siem Reap, your base for exploring Angkor is bustling once more, there are still nowhere near the visitors of the last busy high season months of December-January 2018-2019 when there were 290,000 visitors. 

Last month there were just 55,000 visitors and December feels a little quieter. A tour guide friend said there were about 150 people at Angkor Wat for sunrise a few days ago.

If you’re looking for tips to visiting Angkor, Siem Reap and Cambodia, just ask us a question in the comments below or check Grantourismo as we’ve got loads of info on our site. Click through to the link in the bio and explore our Cambodia guide or search for ‘Angkor’. 

And please do let us know if you’re coming to Siem Reap. We’d love to see you here x

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Our soy ginger chicken recipe will make you sticky Our soy ginger chicken recipe will make you sticky, flavourful and succulent chicken thighs that are fantastic with steamed rice, Chinese greens or a salad, such as a Southeast Asian slaw. 

The chicken can be marinated for up to 24 hours before cooking, which ensures it’s packed with flavour, then it can be cooked on a barbecue or in a pan.

Terence’s soy ginger chicken recipe is one of our favourite recipes for a quick and easy meal. I love the sound of the sizzling thighs in the pan, and the warming aromas wafting through the apartment. 

It’s amazing how such flavourful juicy chicken thighs come from such a quick and easy recipe.

Recipe here (and proper link to Grantourismo in our bio): https://grantourismotravels.com/soy-ginger-chicken-recipe/

If you cook it and enjoy it please let us know — we love to hear from you — either here or in the comments at the end of the recipe on the site or share a pic with us x 

#recipe #recipes #chicken #soygingerchicken #asianfood #southeastasianfood #igfood #igfoodie #cooking #cookingtime #recipe #recipes #comfortfood #foodblog #food #foodstagram #healthyfood #instafood #healthy #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #recipedeveloper #writingacookbook #grantourismo #grantourismotravels
Who can guess the ingredients and what we’re mak Who can guess the ingredients and what we’re making with my market haul from Psar Samaki in Siem Reap — all for a whopping 10,000 riel (US$2.50)?! 

Birds-eye chillies thrown in for free! They were on my list but the seller I spent most at (5,000 riel!) scooped up a handful and slipped them into my bag. She was my last stop and knew what I was making.

My Khmer is poor, even after all our years in Cambodia, as I don’t learn languages with the ease I did in my 20s, plus I’m mentally exhausted after researching and writing all day. I have a better vocabulary of Old and Middle Khmer than modern Khmer from studying the ancient inscriptions for the Cambodian culinary history component of our cookbook I’m writing.

So when one seller totalled my purchases I thought she said 5,000 riel but she handed back 4,500 riel! The sum total of two huge bunches of herbs and kaffir lime leaves was 500 riel.

Tip: if visiting Siem Reap, use Khmer riel for local shopping. We’ve mainly used riel since the pandemic started— rarely use US$ now as market sellers quote prices in riels, as do local shops and bakeries, and I tip tuk tuk drivers in riels. I find prices quoted in riels are lower.

Psar Samaki is cheaper than Psar Leu, which is cheaper than Psar Chas, as it’s a wholesale market, which means the produce is fresher. I see veggies arriving, piled high in the back of vehicles, with dirt still on them — as I did on this trip. 

The scent of a mountain of incredibly aromatic pineapples offloaded from the back of a dusty ute was so heady they smelt like they’d just been cut. More exotic European style veggies arrive by big trucks in boxes labelled in Vietnamese (from Dalat) and Mandarin (from China), such as beautiful snow-white cauliflower I spotted.

Note: the freshest produce is sold on the dirt road at the back of the market.

#cambodia #siemreap #foodwriter #foodblogger #foodphotography #igfood #foodstagram #instafood #instafoodie #foodie #instadaily #picoftheday #market #siemreapmarket #psarsamaki #marketfresh #vegetables #healthyfood #marketshopping #traveltips #foodtravel #culinarytravel #localtravel #cooking #cookingtime #curry #homemade #currypaste #grantourismotravels
My Vietnamese-ish meatballs and rice noodles recip My Vietnamese-ish meatballs and rice noodles recipe makes tender meatballs doused in a delightfully tangy-sweet sauce, sprinkled with crispy fried shallots, with carrot-daikon, crunchy cucumber and fragrant herbs. 

The dish is inspired by bún chả, a Hanoi specialty, but it’s not bún chả. No matter what Google or food bloggers tell you. Names are important, especially when cooking and writing about cuisines not our own.

This is an authentic bún chả recipe:  https://grantourismotravels.com/vietnamese-bun-cha-recipe/ You’ll need to get the outdoor BBQ/grill going to do proper smoky bún chả meat patties (not meatballs).

My meatball noodle bowl is perhaps more closely related to dishes such as a Central Vietnam cousin bún thịt nướng (pork skewers on rice noodles in a bowl) and a Southern relation bún bò Nam Bộ (beef atop rice noodles, sprinkled with fried shallots (Nam Bộ=Southern Vietnam) though neither include meatballs. 

Xíu mại= meatballs although they’re different in flavour to mine, which taste more like bún chả patties. Xíu mại remind me of Southern Italian meatballs in tomato sauce.

In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, home to millions of Khmer, there’s bánh tằm xíu mại. Bánh tằm=silk worm noodles. They’re topped with meatballs, cucumber, daikon, carrot, fresh herbs, crispy fried onions. Difference: cold noodles doused in a sauce of coconut cream and fish sauce. 

Remove the meatballs, add chopped fried spring rolls and it’s Cambodia’s banh sung, which is a rice noodle salad similar to Vietnam’s bún chả giò :) 

Recipe here: (link in bio) https://grantourismotravels.com/vietnamese-meatballs-and-rice-noodles-recipe/

For more on these culinary connections you’ll have to wait for our Cambodian cookbook and culinary history. In a hurry to know? Come support the project on Patreon. (link in bio)

#recipe #recipes #vietnamesefood #cambodianfood #asianfood #southeastasianfood #ricenoodles #rice #noodlebowl #meatballs #igfood #igfoodie #foodblog #food #foodstagram #instafood  #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #writingacookbook #writingacambodiancookbook #patreon #patreoncreator #grantourismo
It is pure coincidence that Pepper’s eye colour It is pure coincidence that Pepper’s eye colour matches the furnishings of our rented apartment. So, no, I did not colour-coordinate the interiors to match our cat’s eyes. 

I keep getting DMs from pet clothing brands wanting to “partner” with Pepper and send her free cat clothes and cat accessories. Although she did wear a kerchief for a few years in her more adventurous fashion-forward teenage years, I cannot see this cat in clothes now, can you? 

#pepper #blackcat #blackcats #blackcatsofinstagram #blackcatsrule #blackcatsmatter #cat #cats #catsofinstagram #catstagram #catlover #catlovers #catlove #catoftheday #catphoto #catpic #catpics #cambodiancat #cambodiancatsofinstagram #catlife #catloversclub #catoftheday #catgram #catstagram #cats_of_instagram #catphotography #catsofig #catsoftheworld #catsofinsta #cats🐱 #siemreap #cambodia

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