Today we had a lazy morning by the pool and very bougie brunch at a place called The Source Cafe; all avo toast and health smoothies. Everyone was very happy with a taste of the familiar.
In the afternoon we went on a bike tour with a little local company called Siem Reap Sunset Tours. The owner Sam, and guide Chey are a 2 man start up, not the flash western owned, colour coordinated bike places we usually go to.
So it was less polished in a lot of ways, but felt really lovely to be genuinely making a difference to their family’s income, as well as learning about them, their family, their community and their business.
They support a local school with proceeds from the tours. The company has only been going for a year or so, they barely have a salary as bookings are in short supply at the moment (it’s low season here, won’t pick up til Oct) and it’s hard to see people struggle to get by.
Things have been tough overall since COVID, tourism has taken a major hit over there. During Covid itself, tourism completely nose dived; they and their community were hunting crickets and frogs at night to survive (like Khmer rouge times), which goes against their Buddhist beliefs to kill anything, along with everything else that level of poverty brings.
We started the tour in their local monastery. We had a quick tour and explanation and received a full blessing from a monk.
This guy was receiving a purification blessing from the monk, because apparently he’d been given some bad news for him and his family by a fortune teller. The monk is throwing blessed water on him, while reciting a prayer.
He also used to be a solider and had both of his hands blown off by land mines. Still managed to ride a bicycle better than me though. We gave him some money, to help reverse his bad fortune.
The tour came with a lot of personal touches, like a little supper – cooked by Sam’s wife – when we got back to base at the end. And base was Sam’s actual house, in the countryside.
His home was a simple structure with corrugated roof, and this cute covered outside area, where the tour groups can sit down for food and get the bikes ready. All overlooking the rice fields.
After a bit of faffing getting Rai’s bike ready (because he wanted an adult one with a basket, even though it was too big for him, and shunned the BMX that actually fit him, but they made it work and indulged him) then we were off down the village lanes.
There was more road riding than we hoped, and a bit less actual riding through the paddy fields, though they were alongside the road.
But it didn’t stop Bo and Rai loving it. Ray thinks it was the best day ever. Probably because he’s never cycled on the road before and thinks he’s in the big league now.
Chey stopped at various local places for us to sample some local fare; rice wine, pigs face, fried crickets, that sort of thing.
And we bought a load of lollipops at the start to give out to village children on the way, which the boys really enjoyed handing out.
We rode about 12km, which is more than I’m used to because I’m absolutely shit at cycling, especially on the road with actual traffic going by. But it was nice to be out doing something different and especially good for the kids to be out seeing the countryside, how other people live and meeting people from different walks of life.
danilovescats 