Neil, Addie, Jesse, Nicole, Tim, and I along with two new team members rode out of Phnom Penh Saturday morning, May 5. Our two new riders were Vaa – Tim’s host brother from SST– and his friend Ratha, who both gave up their weekend to ride with us as far as Vietnam. The two are no strangers to the route and spent a summer biking around Cambodia talking with people in the rural areas about deforestation and the future of their environment. Their organization is called The Explore Cambodia.

The eight of us met in the morning and got ourselves all sorted out. We like to say it was 5:30am, but by the time all stray parts were thorougly bungied down, water bottles were filled, and stragglers were harried, we were on our way at closer to 6:30am. The morning was definitely eventful. We lost Neil for bit when he mishandled his water bottle. Nicole hit a major pot hole which loosend her rack, and we were all fearful for her rather suspect frame, which seems to have developed a minute fracture. We’re trying not to worry; they can fix anything here.

Later on, Ratha and I were riding side-by-side talking about his work when, just ahead of us, Addie and Neil got tangled in each other’s bags and went down on the pavement. I couldn’t react quickly enough and sort of rolled up over Neil’s frame and then fell off my bike to the side. Neil and Addie sustained some significant scrapes. I fared much better. I think we were all glad to get that out of the way. Fortunately there were no trucks following.

I spent a good part of the morning with Ratha, talking about corruption in the Cambodian higher education system. He’s interested in studying law to become a lawmaker in his country. Rutha is 22 years old and attends a university in Phnom Penh. He lives — without parents — as the guardian in a rented space with eight other people, siblings and orphans, and has a business selling bread. He shared with me about how good it feels to be on a bicycle out in the countryside — “it makes one feel very happy and satisfied.” We talked about a number or topics, ranging from childhood to WWF Smackdown RAW. I am not sure how unique Ratha’s situation is, but his smile and seriously good humor were neat to see.

That is something we find everywhere here. Ratha and Vaa especially embody a worldview center around sharing that seems to be essential to Cambodia culture. What’s more honorable yet is that they take social issues seriously and have a proactive approach to accessing and informing others whom they meet. Ratha also spoke with passion about the importance of educating children. The children are the future. While their positive energy describes a youthful nature, their mature goals made me feel young for my age.

We pushed a little over 70 miles our first day. After miles of dusty road and country kids yelling “hello, hello, what is your name?” we arrived in Svay Reing in eastern Cambodia. We found a guest house, ate, and basically passed out. On Sunday, a little before noon, we arrived at the border crossing [of Vietnam] and said goodbye to Vaa and Ratha. The afternoon heat was sweltering, but by the time we rode into Ho Chi Minh City around 5pm things were cooling off.

We all got a little adrenaline rush out of moving through rush hour traffic. A man and his son on a motobike guided us through downtown to where we could find a guest house. Six flights of stairs to our room was unexpected conditioning. We all crammed into a room overlooking the skyline, feeling pretty good about things so far.

Nick Loewen

Posted by Nicholas Loewen

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 3:46 pm and is filed under Asia07. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.