Among travelers, there’s often talk about seeing the “real” parts of country, as opposed to the carefully packaged and sanitized tourist hotspots seen by most people passing through.   These visits don’t necessarily translate into a greater understanding of the country or a more meaningful experience, but going somewhere that most tourists don’t get to can give you a unique perspective or an interesting story.  Once I started biking, other travelers regularly tell me “wow, I bet biking you get to experience the real country” and I usually agree with the sentiment.  After all, if I hadn’t been on a bike I never would have stayed with a local family in Preah Vihear, Cambodia, and I probably wouldn’t have found my way to a a wedding in Siem Reap.  These were the stories that most people wanted to hear about, so, continue clicking to read about them.

After visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia, I was ready for an adventure.  I’d spent the previous few weeks in fairly touristy areas, going from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, through the Mekong region, and to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in Cambodia.  I was yearning to get off the beaten track and see some towns and countryside that most people don’t see, and I wanted to challenge myself on some of Cambodia’s notoriously bad roads (off the highway.)  I took a look at my map and decided to try and follow a road east to Stung Treng.  The road was marked as secondary rather than highway, and the occasional shower foretold the start of the rainy season, so I wasn’t sure how the roads would be, but I wanted to venture out and try something a bit exciting and see what happened.

So, I headed east from Siem Reap.  The first few days proved easy thanks to newly paved roads, despite warnings from out-of-date guidebooks and uninformed guesthouse owners about the insane difficulty of travel in the region.  I made my way to Tbang Meanchay, the capital of the Preah Vihear region of Cambodia, without much difficulty. From here, I wanted to head about 40km east to a small town called Mlu Prey (en route to Stung Treng) and, upon leaving bright and early the next morning, I discovered that the easy riding of the last few days had ended.  I definitely got my adventure, in the form of muddy, flooded, sandy “roads” barely big enough to fit an ox-cart.  I spent much of the day walking my bike through sand or dragging it over giant flooded puddles, inching along at just a few kilometers per hour.  Every time I passed a person (usually a local family riding into town on an ox-cart) I would ask how far to Mlu Prey, and as the day passed the number seemed to stay the same - always 50 kilometers (followed up with “chnyay” the Khmer word for “far”), no matter how far it had felt I’d come.  Things were not looking good.

  After a particularly treacherous 15 kilometer stretch of desolate, god-forsaken roads, I finally came upon a small village.  This was lucky in that I was hungry, thirsty, and had no clue exactly where I was.  By my map, I should have been close to Mlu Prey, but the family on the ox-cart had said it was very “chnyay” still.  I decided to check in at the (very) small store in town.  Now, when I say store, I don’t mean a store in the sense that westerners think of.  Rather, this was a small hut set outside of the main house with an open window through which penny candy, small packets of shampoo, Coca-Cola, and instant noodles could be purchased.  I was thrilled to find it and immediately chugged a small water, then began the difficult task of figuring out where I was.

While I drank the water, the entire family of the store had gathered around me.  This was about as far off the beaten track as you can get.  Fortunately, I had a little Khmer dictionary and some helpful phrases written down, so the conversation went a bit better than it could have gone.

I opened in Khmer,  “Hello! Mlu Prey?”  and the female storekeeper pointed ahead of me on the road.  Well, at least I was going in the right direction.  “Far?  Kilometers?” I asked, and the reply was “3 kilometers.  Far, no.”  Excellent, I could do three more kilometers.  I proceeded to ask about accommodation: “Mlu Prey - hotel?  (No.)  Guesthouse?  (No.)  Restaurant?  (No.)  Store with food?”  (Again, no, laughing.)  Hmmm.  Nowhere to sleep or purchase food.  I had to use my trump card - a piece of paper with “Is there somewhere safe I can sleep tonight?” written in Khmer.   At seeing this, the woman’s eyes lit up.  “Here!” she exclaimed happily, pointing at her house.

And that is how I spent the night at a local house.  It was an amazing experience - meeting Sohkeep (the storekeeper - coincidentally the same age as me at 27 years old!) and her children Sohkahp and Sohkip, talking to her - at least as much as I could! - and eating with them.  I was able to see and experience, first-hand, what Cambodian village life is like.  Her excitement and pride at her rice storage room and high school diploma, the monotonous daily rice husking, the battle against mosquitoes and other biting insects (which still bothered the youngest children), the whole family sleeping on bamboo pads on the open-air balcony together, killing a bony chicken to feed me, practicing Cambodian words together from my dictionary…  I went to bed early, exhausted from the very physical day of biking, but feeling very content with the day.

  To carry on or to turn back in the morning, that was the question I faced. While the evening with the family was extremely interesting, I was concerned with the future journey: getting enough food and water, the difficulty of the road, and of course the possibility of getting stranded due to sudden rain showers.  I had already missed calling home for Mother’s Day (oops) and if I were to get stuck somewhere, it could be a giant pain to return to “civilization.”  When I woke in the morning to the sound of a sudden, harsh rain shower, I felt my decision had been made for me.  I would turn around and re-navigate the terrible roads and return to Tbang Meanchey.  After a breakfast of instant noodles and leftover chicken, I waved goodbye to Sohkeep and her family and began preparing for departure.  I took out some money for the family (it is customary to pay a small amount - a few dollars - to cover food and lodging, and my impression was that she was expecting this money) and gave it to Sohkeep.  “No, no” she returned it.  I tried again.  “No.”  She told me:  “Sohkeep, Malena.  Mit tpiat.”  Mit tpiat is the Khmer word for friendship - a word that she had taught me the night before.

Before I left, I showed her my postcards from New Orleans.  These pictures of horse-drawn carriages and the French Quarter always captivate the people I’ve stayed with, and generally they have a favorite postcard or two that I present as a gift to them, writing my name and email on the back, along with a short note.  I usually tried to write “Thank you” in the swirly Khmer language, copying painstakingly from a book, in addition to the details in English.  This time, Sohkeep interjected, gesturing that I was to write not just thank you but also “mit tpiat” for friendship.  We hugged, took a number of pictures, and was back on the road again, waving goodbye to my new-found friend.

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The return to the city had its own stories.  I took a slightly different way back, traveling through a rice paddy rather than fording a much higher stream, and this time passed through a small village with a medical clinic run by missionaries.  They too invited me to stay with them, and I was able to spend a day or two reading books in English, emailing my parents, watching American Idol and Britain’s Got Talent on Youtube with the middle-school age children.  I helped count out pills for the clinic and purchased a bicycle for a local child, and I added a few of the family on Facebook.  However, that is for a different entry, so I will fast-forward past it to the wedding….

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I stayed at a small, family-owned guesthouse in Siem Reap that I just fell a little bit in love with.  The owners were friendly and offered lots of advice on my travel plans, the rooms were spacious and clean with private bathrooms, the price included free breakfast, internet, and laundry, and it was only $5 a night.  Needless to say, when I returned from my little adventure I decided to stay at the same guesthouse.  However, upon arriving there were a few differences.  For one thing, during my first stay there weren’t many other visitors, but when I rolled in on my bike for the second time the garden was packed with Cambodian guests, all squeezed into just a few rooms.  Also, earlier the place was pretty calm - now it was busy and bustling with obvious preparations for some sort of party.

I expected to be told there was no space, but what luck! The owner assured me that although there was a wedding planned for the following day there was still one room available, and, even better, that I was welcome to attend the reception the next evening.  While biking through towns, I’ve been waved in at a number of wedding parties - sometimes by a smiling bride dressed in a gorgeous white wedding dress, and sometimes just by random people standing by the entrance.  Usually, however, I’ve been too embarrassed by my sweaty, stinky clothes to do much more than wave, so this time I decided to come to the party.  That evening, I dressed in my nicest outfit and snuck a peak at the bridal party in the room next door, where women were painting faces and curling hair, amidst much giggling and gossiping.  My nicest outfit, unfortunately, was pretty horrible and I didn’t really compare well to any of the local guests.

And what a party it was!  While a torrential downpour meant things didn’t get started exactly at 6 as planned (in fact, when not a single person had arrived at 6:20 the bride and family were starting to look a little desperate) by 7 the tent was full and crowded of Cambodians drinking lots of Angkor beer.  While the bride and groom were circulating amongst the happy guests, all wearing their Sunday best, I sat at my table with a lot of English-speaking Angkor Wat guides.  We talked about Cambodia, the wedding, the happy couple, and the food being served (as much as you could eat!)  Of course, I was a little nervous about some of the food, so I carefully asked what each dish was before eating.  “What’s this?”  “Chicken.”  “And this?”  “Cow.”  “What part of the cow?”  “Cow meat.  That one is cow innards.”  Mmm, cow innards.

It seemed like every half an hour, the bride would disappear for a few minutes and reemerge in a different traditional Cambodian style dress.  One was silver, one was red, and so on… each was obviously carefully prepared and designed and looked extremely uncomfortable!  The groom, of course, wore the same pink shirt all night.  Lucky him!

After the food was done, the karaoke machine was turned on to local Cambodian power pop.  Everyone cheered, the dancing started, and, yes, there was lots of singing.  I didn’t stay all night but I did tell the bride she looked very beautiful (she spoke English fairly well, and thanked me for coming.)  I also found an envelope for making donations, and left a $5 bill in there for the couple to purchase their first home, as apparently this is what the money gets spent on.

Cambodian wedding traditions are quite interesting.  For one thing, it is the only country that I personally know of where the man pays a dowry to the woman’s family to marry her.  Sometimes, this dowry can be quite large - one popular music video includes a scene where a man is asked to pay $5000 dowry (and finance the wedding) to marry a beautiful girl!  Apparently, this figure is common in the cities.  A large dowry is, of course, representative of the man’s ability to work hard and take care of his future wife.  During the wedding, money collections are requested of all guests to help finance the bride and groom’s future.  This money is carefully tracked and written down in a large book, and the bride and groom are expected to pass on the favor, giving equal or greater money at future weddings.  To not give money is a huge faux pas and will result in shame and shunning.

The next morning, as I was leaving, I noticed the family of the bride carefully counting all the money and recording all of the “donations” - It’s a good thing I gave some money!

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I am now safe and sound at home in the States!  Phew!  I’ll be here for at least a month (probably a bit more) while I make plans for the next year and, hopefully, get caught up on this blog.  I still have many stories to write about, obviously.