Re-connecting to Cambodia
It had felt like I hadn’t had the physical or mental space to truly relax in the last three months before Cambodia, which is slightly insane given that this round-the-world trip had largely been a holiday. Privileged? Yes, yes. One lesson Kim and I have learned the hard way is to move less when we travel, to minimise flights and transfers and one or two night stays. To simmer more and boil less. Our schedule has meant we’ve spent a lot of time packing, unpacking, shuttling, flying, and focused on what’s next and a lot less time being present where we are. I feel like I should re-read Be Here Now, except that I never read it the first time.
As soon as I stepped out of the airport in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and saw the torrential rainstorm drowning the surrounding fields, I felt instantly better. The last four days in Tokyo had been great, but this was what I loved: the green rice fields, the countryside that expands for miles, and a simpler life.
Last Resorts
We needed some nature time. While resorts are not really “nature”, nor are they something that Kim or I are fans of, we found a ‘nature resort’ called “The Beige” (note to marketing: nothing says excitement and adventure like the colour beige!) just an hour outside of Siem Reap. It’s a small resort with seven glamping tents on almost 40 acres of land.
A rescued elephant and a trio of water buffalo roamed the property. Our first day we saw almost no one other than the ten or so hotel staff. The level of service is a bit too much for us — far too deferential, and we miss the Croatian authenticity that treated us as peers rather than rich tourists. Mostly it was just quiet, other than the noise from the wedding/funeral/buddhist venue next door.
The goal was to relax, but three days of long sleep, little activity, and getting used to large portions of food (i.e. over ordering and hating food waste) meant I left carrying a couple kilos more than I arrived with. There was jiggle! What!? This might be the first time I’ve put weight on this quickly, my metabolism must have plummeted in the week after SwimTrek.
When traveling in Latin America or Asia, there is a constant urge inside me to say, “Don’t treat us like we’re in a different class,” but of course, we are. We were lucky, to be born where we were born, in developed Western countries, to families that cared about education and had the means to provide it to us. The trailer I grew up in had luxuries like electricity that many homes don’t have in Cambodia. And my toy box would be the envy of any of the kids in my class; one season of Christmas gifts would be worth more than all the gifts of their entire childhood.
This is my third trip to Cambodia: the first was in 2013 with Atlassian to see the work that Room to Read was doing in the country. The second trip was in 2015 to get to see a library that had been built for my cousin Diane, and to cycle around the rural parts of the Mekong.
It had been eight years since my last visit to Cambodia. I wanted Kim to experience for herself why Cambodia was important to me.
Getting Schooled Again
The one place I most wanted to see again in Cambodia was the primary school I had visited in 2015, where there is a plaque dedicated to my cousin Diane for her gift of a life saving kidney that she gave me in 2004.
I had set my expectations low and asked Room to Read to not make any kind of production of our visit, given that last time I’d been overwhelmed by the greeting we received.
While the library that was built from some of the funds of a fundraising campaign is still there and full of books, and heavily used by the kids, there are still so many challenges that the school faces. They only have three rooms for six grades, so the kids double shift — grades 1–3 coming in the morning and grades 4–6 coming in the afternoon. Teachers teach one set of kids in the morning and a separate grade in the afternoon, so they need to double up on lesson plans, and students don’t have a full day of class given the time constraints.
When you look at the Buddhist temple next door, ornate and with additional construction happening, you realise that education is simply not their priority, even through they believe it is important. One local explained, “They spend money because they are concerned about their afterlife,” and as a result the children of their town don’t get the education they deserve. This would be one of many encounters with spiritual thinking in Southeast Asia that exposed the misplaced priorities, not unique to Cambodia, Asia, or Buddhism, or global religion for that matter.
Despite these challenges, there was a stark difference between this school and others. We had seen another school set up by the owner of The Beige resort — an incredible act of generosity. Yet the Room to Read sponsored school was a world apart — starting with basics like clean drinking water, and expanding to a fully functioning and filled library, food programs, life skills programs, literacy curriculum, and better grounds for the school.
The moment of surprise for me was going to the back of the library and seeing that the mural was still there! I had painted it with some of the kids from the school — and in talking with the teachers, learned that one of the teachers had been one of the kids eight years ago who did the mural painting with me! The entire journey to the village had been worth it just to hear that and get to see her again.
The kids are amazing, and for me are the main motivation to care about a place so far outside my daily existence.
On the Road Again, This Time Without Meat
The next day, our cycling tour along the Mekong began. I had picked the same tour company, Grasshopper Adventures, that I had used before. But this time I had chosen a tour that took us into Vietnam, and overall the experience just wasn’t as great in Cambodia as it had been before.
I was not vegetarian the last time I visited Cambodia, and spring rolls and rice just don’t cut it for cycling nutrition. This tour’s route in Cambodia didn’t go along the gorgeous red dirt roads and small villages (rainy season had turned so many of them into mud), but instead rode on cracked paved roads with far too many cars on them. After the second day, I was ready to leave Cambodia behind and ride into Vietnam, which we did!
[to be continued in the next blog, on Vietnam…]
Arkun (thank you), Cambodia.
