Making rice paper

This morning we took tuk tuks out to local villages to see some of the local crafts.  The first visit was to see these ladies making rice paper.  They make several hundred circles like this every day.

We also saw bananas being cut into very thin slices which were then dried in the sun to make a tasty snack, a rice wine factory (I didn't try any this time, but I enjoyed it in Vietnam) and finally a fish paste factory, where the paste is made from fermented fish. It didn't smell as unpleasant as I had been warned, but that may have been because there was little activity today:  a lot of places are closed or partially closed for the Chinese New Year which they seem to celebrate here (as well as the Western New Year and the Cambodian New Year).   By this time I was getting very hot and uncomfortable and I was happy to return to the hotel, where I stayed cool all afternoon.  Some of the others in the group adventured out around Battambang, but temperatures reached 39 C and it was, apparently, very uncomfortable.

A final evening in Battambang before returning to Phnom Penh tomorrow.