Rice Wrapper Paper Making in Battambang

In Battambang, do ask your tuk-tuk driver to take you to a rice paper making village. This form cottage industry is an art by itself and a stark contrast to factory made rice paper wrappers that you get elsewhere.

Rice paper drying on a bamboo rack at the rice paper making village in Battambang.

Rice paper wrappers are made from crushed broken rice that cannot be sold as rice. These are turned into  a rice flour slurry where the mixture can then poured on top of a cloth surface that covers a pot of steaming water. To stoke the fire, they use rice husk as fuel - a good way to utilize waste as a resource.

When the rice flour mixture is cooked, the steaming hot rice paper is lifted off the cloth surface and left to cool for a while on a bamboo handle. They are then quickly transferred to a bamboo tray to sun and air dry.

The steamed rice wrapper being carefully lifted off the pot
surface.

The partly cooled wrapper being transferred to the
drying rack.

You can buy these wrappers from them if you like. Also if you ask, they may also have mango patty for sale, sort of like a fruit pulp chewy candy that consist of mango fruit pulp dried in a similar fashion in circular sheet as in the rice paper. They are nice to munch on as snack.