Why being a Veggie is hella hard here

Being a veggie, I had the hardest time of my life trying to find food in Cambodia. I once bought a veggie sandwich (seriously. It looked like only green stuff when she prepared it!!) but even that sandwich ended up being with crabs. Not crab meat tho. Crab feet. With the shell. Got hungry now?

Or the other time when I wanted VEGGIE noodle soup. Told that the waitress twice while ordering. Got the soup, saw something looking like meat in there. The waitress just was like "No no, all vegetable, no meat!"

Dumb me believe her, until I found a big ass peace of beef in there. She was just laughing and telling me, that she´s sorry and could bring me another vegetable soup. I rejected, because if she really had veggie soup - why didn´t she bring it the first time I asked??? -.-

The thing is, I don´t mind not finding veggie food - it´s a different culture and people there prefer fish, meat and undefinable stuff and that´s fine! I just can´t stand being told that something is veggie, when it´s clearly not. GAAAH! Anyway, I decided to live on Cookies and plain rice with soy sauce after that, which might not be the healthiest, but probably the safest option. The fun thing is, that in 9 of 10 cases you can´t even tell what type of meat that is what you´re eating – and due to the English knowledge of the merchants, you´ll never know 😊 Imagine ordering a “pork steem”, expecting a nice noodle soup with slices of proper piggy in it. You get the soup. You start eating. You look at what you´re eating. And all of a sudden you´re wondering what the gut of a pig might look like, because what´s there on your spoon definitively ain´t no normal meat :D Never have I ever been happier about being a vegetarian lol. Aight, what more food-shock stories could I tell… Oh, the national speciality of Cambodia! It´s eggs. Nothing fancy. Except from the fact that they´re letting the hatchlings develop halfway, then kill them (how?!) and then put some sauce in the egg. Can´t really imagine what it tastes like, probably pretty crunchy with the bones any everything… Whatever. More fun things you can watch on the markets, especially in Phnom Penh, are the slaughter and suffocating of fish. I get it, some people need to eat meat and fish, don´t judge y´all for that! But taking the fish out of the water and simply letting them smother to death?! Wtf. Oh and most of the Crabs/shrimps/whatever you could buy there were still alive - simply pack ´em into plastic bags, close the bag and let nature do her job. Sure, couldn´t be any fresher! But again, not really necessary and too cruel, at least if you ask me. Luckily, life´s not only about food, you also gotta drink. I´ve been mostly surviving on water, until I got really really REALLY bored by it. Tried some things out, and THE SHIT is canned lychee juyce/basil seed with lychee juice. The last thing isn´t for everyone and it takes a while to get used to the slimy taste, but I don´t wanna live without it anymore :D And for all the coffee lovers – there´s a silver light at the Horizon! The iced coffee here is the best one I tried in my whole life. Super black, super strong, super cold. And tastes surprisingly well with half a kilo of sugar in it, which seems to be the “normal” way of drinking it here. More about drinking – a friend of mine really fancied the fruit shakes here – they were, his words: “super fresh, super cheap and super rich in taste.” I prefer my fruits in pieces rather than blended, but whoever loves shakes will have a good time here, because you get them at every corner.