BBQ at Tonli Bati

I've been hanging out with cool group of people at a guesthouse called The Top Banana.  It's managed by a man from New York named Todd (who came out for a two week trip two years ago).  One night there was talk of a barbeque at Tonli Bati, a lake about 45 minutes away from the Phnom Penh city center.  Apparently the owner of the guesthouse, a Khmer man named Sove, cooks up a mean pork rib so naturally I had to attend.  So we drive out to Tonli Bati.  Not a westerner in sight (besides the ones in our group).

The first task is to cross the extremely rickity wooden planks leading to the bamboo huts suspended over the water.

Here is all of us with the barbeque in full force.  Sove was using a clay pot and a metal grate to do the cooking.  I thought to myself, wait a second, we're in a structure made entirely of dried plants and he's got a pretty big fire going in that pot and if- oh my God these ribs are amazing.  Not another thought could pass through my head once the ribs started going.  We bought 5kg of ribs (that's a lot) and none of us could stop, we also threw some prawns on the fire just to mix things up.

Here is the view out over the lake.  Yes, it's not the cleanest water so there was no swimming but it did provide the perfect setting for a barbeque.  It also provided a business opportunity for Khmer who would row up in a canoe and try to sell meat, chips, drinks, anything you might have forgotten really.  Especially these bright orange things on skewers.  They were pork-stuffed frogs.  We got about five of them and they were so very delicious.