Living like the Locals

Living like the Locals…

The last 200 km. from Kratie to the border were difficult, but traveling it by bike at least had the advantage of giving us insight into how life for the area’s locals is lived. It took us 8 days to travel those 120 mi. That gives you an idea of the pace of life and of how isolated the villagers are, especially during the monsoon season. Most villages in Cambodia don’t have a secondary school, but these tiny ones didn’t even have a primary school. Often, these “villages” consisted of only a few houses. We saw how no traffic can get through when it rains and the roads turn to mud, and this means that people in the area are completely cut off from the outside world – no supplies, no food in the miniscule “shops” except rice, crackers, and canned sardines imported from Thailand, and certainly no access to health centers or medical supplies. The primitive dwellings certainly had no electricity or running water, and the people were forced to wash their buffalo, their vehicles, their cooking utensils, and their clothing in stagnant mud puddles.

We did likewise, collecting rainwater that dripped from our tent to use for cooking, cleaning, washing up and drinking. We cleaned our bikes, our bags, and even our mud-caked clothing in mud puddles and shallow rivulets a couple of inches deep. Afterwards, our clothing was still muddy, but at least the patches of sun-baked mud were gone, and after all, all is relative! A simple stick became our best friend and our most practical and handy tool, prying away mud from our tires, bags, and sandals. And when we did find mud puddles deep enough to “clean “our equipment and clothing, we considered ourselves lucky!

Traveling forces you to look at life differently and to appreciate the “simple” things that one often takes for granted. You become grateful for electricity, running water, a toilet, a shower, drinking water, road construction crews, and even a shop that sells more than rice and canned sardines!