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Giant Puppet Project, Siem Reap, Cambodia. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

The Giant Puppet Project Parade Snakes Through Siem Reap

Giant Puppet Project Parade snakes through Siem Reap on a Saturday night each February. If you’re heading to Cambodia in 2017 try to time your trip to coincide with this wonderful event. It’s a fun-filled night that’s made for families with kids.

Getting along to local festivals and events, whether as an observer or participant, is a wonderful way to get an insight into a local culture and community. If you’re going to be in Siem Reap in February 2017 do try to get to the Giant Puppet Project Parade.

To get an idea as to all the work that goes into making the Parade the success that it is, read our behind-the-scenes story from the puppet-making workshops for the 2015 Giant Puppet Project Parade.

The Giant Puppet Project Parade in Siem Reap

In a not-so-quiet corner of the leafy grounds of Siem Reap’s historic Wat Damnak pagoda, young Cambodian artists from Battambang and foreign volunteers are teaching children from the Human and Hope Association school to make rattan and bamboo skeletal frames.

These enormous frames will form the skeleton of the colossal animal puppets that will snake through Siem Reap’s streets on Saturday night for the ninth Giant Puppet Project Street Parade.

There is chatter, laughter, giggles, and every now and again the children’s enthusiastic shouts of “Zip!” “Zap!” “Boing!”, the loud calls of a motivational game created by British artist Jig Cochrane.

Cochrane, one of the founders with Siem Reap-based architect Stuart Cochlin, designed the game to refocus excitable and easily distracted kids on the tasks at hand. It has become a rallying cry for the teams of small children behind this big public event.

Cochlin conceived the idea for the Giant Puppet Project and co-founded the event in 2007 with Cochrane. An artist who had worked with communities affected by war and poverty, Cochrane had been passing through Siem Reap, seeking opportunities to run puppet-making workshops for children.

Cochlin, who had a long relationship with NGOs, believed that the workshops wouldn’t be enough, that the children should have a public space to celebrate their creative achievements. The Giant Puppet Project Street Parade was born.

“Jig started the “Zip Zap Boing” game to get the kids attention at the beginning and end of each session,” volunteer Lucy Gaskill, a lighting designer from Cornwall in the UK, explains as we watch the children from the steps of the monk’s ordination hall that has become the project’s headquarters for two weeks. “It’s perfect for building team spirit.”

This year there are 500 children involved in the project from NGOs including Salariin Kampuchea, Kaliyan Mith (Friends International), Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC), Helping Hands Cambodia, Husk, Cambodian Land Mine Museum Relief Fund (CLMMF), Stepping Stones, This Life Cambodia, ABCs and Rice, Learning Foundation, Kruasar Thmey, Together for Cambodia, and the Human and Hope Association, which is where the kids in this afternoon’s session are from.

“Our students are quite under-confident when it comes to being creative and the arts. Usually when we do art activities, they will say ‘ot jeh’, meaning ‘I don’t have the ability’,” explains Sally Hetherington, Operations Manager at the Hope and Human Association. “By participating in these workshops they can see they do have the ability to be creative, and it is a great confidence booster for them. The kids have never had anything like this growing up.”

“On the night, our students and staff love the attention they get walking through town and dancing proudly with their creation,” Sally says. “We are always so exhausted the next day, but it is totally worth it.”

Each group of children collaborate on the puppets over four morning and afternoon sessions spread over two days during the first week of the project, under the guidance of 16 Cambodian artists and art students from Battambang’s Phare Ponleu Selpak visual arts school, assisted by eleven foreign volunteers.

In the second week the artists and volunteers will work with Gaskill and UK artist-designer Martin Matthews, to complete the technical aspects, including rigging lights to illuminate the puppets.

Gaskill had worked with Matthews for a decade at Cornwall’s Eden Project, an environmental tourist attraction with a captive rainforest that attracts 1.2 million visitors a year, where they designed fun, interactive exhibits to engage visitors, along with events.

Gaskill had been looking for a project to volunteer on for years when she met Matthews who had been to Siem Reap and told her about the Giant Puppet Project.

“This was something that I had wanted to do for a long time without finding the right project,” Gaskill explains.

“When I was in my twenties I did some travelling in Africa, starting in Egypt and went down through Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia to Kenya in 4WD vehicles,” she tells me. “Every time we showed up in little villages I felt like we were a circus rocking up to town. We were a major event but we weren’t actually bringing an event to a place where nothing actually happens.”

“For 20 years I’ve been working on events in the UK where you struggle to get people to care, to really want to do it, and be passionate about it, because there are just so many events happening and so many opportunities,” Gaskill elaborates.

“I felt like it was much more meaningful to work with people who have fewer opportunities to do something. When I looked at the Giant Puppet Project website, I thought that sounds just gorgeous. Here I am.”

Gaskill is here to use her lighting expertise to better illuminate the puppets as well as improve the safety of the event and make it more eco-friendly. The puppets had been illuminated by light bulbs fixed inside and cheap fairy lights strung around the outside, with power provided by car batteries and inverters that converted the voltage up to 220/240 volts.

It was risky in that there was a high chance of electric shocks or fire, as well as being energy-inefficient. Gaskill got rid of the dangerous inverters and introduced safe 12-volt batteries and LED products that use a lot less power.

The lights, including 250 sets of fairy lights, 300 LED lamps, 400 metres of cable, and a pile of 12-volt batteries, all of which will get recycled next year, were generously donated by Pactics Cambodia.

The event wouldn’t be possible without the help of sponsors that this year includes the Victoria Angkor Resort and Spa, Shinta Mani Club and Resort, Teacher Horizons, Angkor Sayana Hotel and Spa, Navutu Dreams Resort and Spa, and private donors Janet and Allen Johnson. Not to mention volunteers, including 50 Cambodians from the Pactics factory who act as safety stewards on the night, and staff from Miss Wong bar and Cochlin’s architectural firm who have acted as runners and problem-solvers.

“It’s the first time that we’ve all worked together as a team – although many people are returning from last year – so we couldn’t have been more happy with the way it’s already turning out,” Matthews smiles proudly.

“I find the expression of art in the community to be really healing and empowering,” he elaborates. “Art is magic and it can create magic however you define it. The energy that all of these young hands put into the puppets makes it something really special.”

Today’s groups are beginning to wind up for the afternoon. An Oriental bay owl lying on the lawn is almost done, and its orange and gold body shimmers in the late afternoon light.

By the weekend they will have completed the bodies of seven giant puppets including a leaf insect, a goat to celebrate Chinese New Year, and Mekong river fish. The puppets are animals, because the environmental message is an integral element of the event.

Yon Tony, a Cambodian biodiversity specialist was responsible for a biodiversity survey at Kulen Mountain, which confirmed that wildlife there is endangered due to illegal logging, land clearing for farming, and hunting.

Yon is training local farmers to work in eco-tourism so the additional income discourages them from engaging in behaviour that threatens the flora and fauna.

“I tell the children about the wildlife, what the animals are, and how they live,” Yon explains. “The children don’t know anything about wildlife and they don’t have a chance to see those kinds of animals.”

“But wildlife and forests are really important for Cambodia, for the world, and for humanity,” Yon says. “So I tell them we need to protect the animals and that this is a chance for us to get these messages across to the people.”

“After I tell them, I look at their faces and listen to them and they say “Oh, these are beautiful insects and beautiful animals!” They know there is a thing called a bird, but they don’t understand how many varieties of birds there are, forest birds, water birds, and that we have so many different species in Cambodia that we need to protect,” Yon elaborates. “I think the project is a great way to communicate messages about protecting the wildlife.”

A group of small children is working on the rattan body of an animal. Tony asks them how they are. “Happy!” they shout in unison. Are they excited about the Parade, he asks?

“It will be beautiful,” says twelve year-old Savit, smiling.

How To See the 2016 Giant Puppet Project Parade

The 2016 Giant Puppet Project Parade starts at 7pm on Saturday 6th February on the corner near Viva and the former Warehouse Bar, passes Old Market before snaking around and along Pub Street, before returning to the riverside, where it crosses the bridge and moves along River Road. It should arrive at the Royal Gardens by 8pm, where a children’s carnival will take place. Map here.

More information on the Giant Puppet Project Parade website and Facebook page.

A shorter version of this story was published in the Phnom Penh Post.

UPDATED: February 2016

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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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Lara and Terence are an Australian-born, Southeast Asia-based travel and food writers and photographers who have authored scores of guidebooks, produced countless travel and food stories, are currently developing cookbooks and guidebooks, and host culinary tours and writing and photography retreats in Southeast Asia.
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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... 

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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

#siemreap #cambodia #asia #travel #instatravel #traveldeeper #slowtravel #localtravel #experientialtravel #exploremore #neverstopexploring #goexplore #igtravel #angkorwat #angkor #temple #temples #angkorwithoutcrowds #unesco #unescoworldheritagesite #unescoworldheritage #archaeology #archaeologicalsite #traveladdict #beautifuldestinations #beautifulplaces #travelgram #wanderlust #picoftheday📷 #grantourismotravels.
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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