It’s not like I grew up wanting to eat a big hairy spider but when I was looking through The Travel Book getting inspired for my trip to Asia, eating a tarantula in Cambodia popped out as something really unique and cool to do. I have a fear of spiders so eating one seemed like a stretch, which is what I love to do.
Cambodia was our first stop on our 10-month Southeast Asia trip we did back in 2012. From day one in Phnom Penh to the next week in Siem Reap and Battambang, I asked everyone if they knew where I could find fried tarantulas. No one had them. There were other fried bugs all over the place (I ate some on a bus trip) but maybe tarantulas weren’t in season or something. It seemed like my dream of french-fried-spider-legs was not going to happen.