you don't always get what you ask for.. sort of..

One hot, hot, hot, day of 98*F, while on vacation, in the temples of Cambodia.. which seemed like a hot, steamy day of 128*F to a person who had just left 'cooler than usual' spring temps of 58*F.. a few of our group 'opted' out of looking at anymore temples or.. what I called: STACKED ROCKS...

and decided to sit in the hot sun.. but, under a canopy, at the small food snack place, so, it was a little less hot. One thing that hot, tropical, steamy locations do have is.. wonderful tropical fruits. So, I noticed on the menu of selected drinks and fresh fruits to purchase.. fresh coconut

I haven't had fresh coconut out of the shell in years... so, a friend and I decided to share the order- I was the only one of us with some $$, in my pocket, as my friend's money and the rest of my money was locked in the tour guide's van.

The long awaited coconut arrived after a flurry of chopping and preparation and I immediately knew it wasn't what I remembered eating when I lived in the Philippines.. oh no.. this coconut was so fresh it was still green. which was also found in the Philippines-- but, the type of coconut that I avoided when I lived there.

I had had 'green coconut' in the past.. once.. and it was enough to let me know that I didn't like it at all- it's slimy, barely tastes like coconut.. sigh.. I had spent all the money that I had in my pocket and it was useless to think of the fresh mango, or papaya that we could be eating instead.



Oh, I might add that they also gave us the fresh green 'coconut milk' in a glass that was on the inside(which you can see the full glasses behind the coconut in the photo)... which does not taste anything like the coconut milk from a 'mature' coconut or even less like what 'coconut milk' sold in a can in the grocery store tastes like.

So, there we were.. waiting for another 2 hours, for the others in our group to return,... with the green coconut staring at us like it was a rejected orphan or something. And there we were with no more money to buy an alternate drink or fruit snack.

It did give us something to laugh about...