I ate some bugs!!
But I’ll get into that a bit later. Today I went on another small group tour. It was with the same tour company that
I did the Angkor Wat tour with.
This tour was to see how people in the countryside here live. We went to a small village outside of
Siem Reap called Kompheim Village.
Through the tour we were assigned a host family that allowed us to come
to their home for the day. The
village is very poor, so the tour company works with the village for the
benefit of the village as well as for us tourists. The family that hosts the tour group (it is a different
family every time which is chosen by the chief of the village) receives the offer of help for
the day (they can decide what they want us to do) as well as a small payment,
and a larger contribution is given to the village fund for special projects
such as water wells or water filtration.
Us touristas get to give
back to the community that we have been visiting and get to see a slice of what
life in Cambodia is actually like.
It was an enlightening day. My tour consisted of 4 people – me, and three other people
from Poland. Our host family is
considered a type 1 household (a government classification) which means they
typically struggle to meet daily needs.
They live in a small, basic house and have 4 kids. The village is quite poor, but from
what I saw they really seemed to have a sense of community and are willing to
help each other out. Our main job
for the day was to weave palm leaves together to help the family with a repair
they are doing on their house. It
was a bit tough at first, but once you got into the groove, you could really
get going. We were really determined
to get as much done and to help this family out in any way we could. We also helped them plant some fruit
trees on their property, as well as contributing to the lunch we had. While we were working, many of the
village children popped in to say hello, and we saw some of them again when we
did a walk around seeing the schools and monastery. As I mentioned before because this town is such a touristy
place, it is really hard to get a sense of what it is really like. This day certainly gave me a glimpse.
On the way to the village we stopped at a snack stand which
served insects and frogs. I was
finally brave enough to try the locust and the larvae. As part of our lunch, we also had red
ants. Yeah!! I’ve finally tried some insects!
In the evening I went to a performance by “Phare” also known
as the Cambodian circus. It was
like a very amateur Cirque de Soleil in an outdoor area (I do love being
outdoors in the evenings in the tropics!) Again interesting and I’m glad I checked it out.
I leave tomorrow, but I
really still have a full day. My
flight doesn’t leave until 11:30 PM, but I usually find travel days are a bit
of a write off because your head space is on the fact that you’re leaving. I guess I’ll see if I can find anything
interesting to do.
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| First stop of the day - snacks. |
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| Mmmmmmm locusts! |
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| Taking an "original" tuk-tuk |
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| Being greeted as we enter the village |
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| My turn to drive! |
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| Our host mother with her youngest child. |
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| Our host father with one of his sons. |
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| This is harder than it looks! |
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| Curious to see what we're doing. |
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| What our work today is going to be used for. |
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| Lunch time. The red ants actually tasted like a citrus fruit! |
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| Are you hungry yet? |
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| Lunch with the family. |
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| I get to plant a jackfruit tree. |
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| This is a trampoline for children in the third world |
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| Playing an English game at school. |
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| I couldn't take pictures at the circus, so this is the best you will get! |
