Cows eating rubbish at the local market
Jen, Jess, Lucky and Lindsey at the floating village protest
The sign of the Cambodian government doing the local villages out of business!
The most beautiful small girl getting her first bicycle
Traditional Khmer drum lesson!So this was a huge day full of many stories... and it all started at breakfast :)
Alanna''s old student is now working for Sustainable Cambodia and is living with a local family who run a road side noodle restaurant where our smaller group from yesterday chowed down on some traditional Cambodian noodles in a coconut broth - delicious! We were late to our meeting point with Sustainable Cambodia due to needing to hunt out the morning black fuel coffee - however once we arrived at sustainable Cambodia we were still early on Cambodian time - love it :)
We headed out to one of their villages where they are implementing some sustainable rural development and educational development strategies. We hung out in a kindergarten, rice bank, bee farm before heading back off down the orange dirt track to make out music appointment where some local children were learning the traditional music of Khmer - needless to say given the above photo i got right in there with the drums.
Our next appointment was giving away bicycles to the poorest children in the community so that they can get to school. Although I do not believe that hand outs are in anyway sustainable the joy on the children's and parents faces at receiving this vital transport link was worth it :)
It was a frantic pack up at the hotel and loading the bikes again before heading off to the next stop Kampong Luung which was a leisurely 30kms down the road. Several of our team had been taken down by gastric problems, flu and fever so we were a much diminished group with the rest piling into a truck for the journey. I was a nice speedy ride and we were warmly welcomed by the hotel owner with free coconuts - since I am not a coconut person usually, in face I avoid it - I might just be starting to like them. Or maybe its the fact that I now associate them with sitting in a hammock in the shade :)
This afternoon we jumped on some motos and headed out to the Tonle Sap to take in the floating markets. The road out to the lake shows a real insight into life out hear and is quite frankly revolting in that it is littered and smells. Once at the port we were in mid negotiation with some of the local boat owners when a man wearing a striped shirt came out with a big blue sign - see above. he informed us that as of yesterday there was new government regulation that stipulated the price of the boat trip so that local people could not charge their won price. It also stipulated that local boat owner needed to possess a license to take foreigners out onto the lake. we had twelve people and were not allowed to take a 15 person boat even if we paid the price of 15 people, we tried to recruit our Khmer moto drivers to make up numbers but then stripped shirt guy told us that local people could not go with us - well we had had enough of this obvious underhandedness and dived up the money we would have spent on the tour to spent at the local shops. It was a great way to reinforce the community and not let the government get away with such behavior. Our local guide Rity was amazing and translated out reasons for boycotting the boats and used one of our voices to express his own opinions - it was a great stand and several of the local community came up to him afterward supporting him and our decision! Go us
This night we stayed in what can only be described as a hotel with hot pink satin sheets that belong in a porn movie and very damp rooms - we were glad to leave the next morning.
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