Soksabike has been super busy recruiting more super star guides for this years fast approaching tourist season. Our team of amazingly talented young characters is quickly growing. For the past 3 weeks our team has been developing and delivering training to the new guides joining the Soksabike team.

This training has included everything from mock tours around Battambang town to countless role plays, scenarios, sharing of experiences, hands on bike maintenance and more.

But I would like to share just one highlight of the training session from yesterday that was brought to us by none other than Soksabike’s vision ambassador Khou Sothea.

He was leading a training session on best communication practices with the Soksabike team, leaders, guests and families we visit on tour.

To introduce the training he asked all of us to pull out one hair from our head. We then had to tie one knot in this strand of hair. Now comes the tricky part… He asked us, “please try and see if you can untie the knot.”

Sothea training the Soksabike guides in best communication practices.

Meanwhile I’m thinking to myself Geeze, this must be just another natural skill for all Cambodians that I don’t know about while I’m looking at the tiniest of all knots not knowing where to start.

I looked around and everyone else was staring puzzled at their tiny knot as well, so I was not alone after all.

One guide then said, “I have done this before,” and demonstrated to everyone how to get the knot out of their strand of hair. This involved holding the knot in the crease of your hand, closing your fist over it while banging it on the other hand repeatedly.

If you do this enough times your knot loosens enough for you to untie it.

Sothea’s ‘moral of the story’, so to speak, was to remind the new guides that it is okay to feel overwhelmed and not sure how to do something when you are learning new things. He said, “because it is through this training and practice that you will gain the experience to do your job well. See now you know how to untie the knot it is not as difficult. This is the same approach you should take while you are learning to become a tour guide.”

Training has definitely not been short of unforgettable moments like these. Thanks to the Soksabike team for delivering a fantastic training program so far for our new guides.

Remember the Soksabike team’s recent attempt to explore Bak Preah Village near the Tonle Sap Lake as a potential tour destination?

Well it was exactly that, an ‘attempt’. However, we did stumble across an amazing fishing conservation project in a village called Rohal Suong. With the team still keen to show guests the livelihoods along the Tonle Sap Lake, we set out for Bak Preah by boat 2 weeks ago, as promised!

Among the team of explorers for this adventure was Sothea, Sopheap, Alex and Jan.

A quick side note: Jan is from Germany and recently spent two and a half weeks volunteering with Soksabike and was the mastermind behind our second expedition to Bak Preah. He did an amazing job and we recommend you follow his cycling adventure across South-East Asia.

We left Kinyei HQ at 6.30am on Saturday morning the 25th of June but this time by bicycle and carrying a lot more gear, as we were prepared for a sleep over in Bak Preah.

The plan…

To ride our bicycles 14km to Rohal Suong Village where we change our mode of transport to a boat and get escorted all the way to Bak Preah by Rohal Suong’s community leader, Mr Jomroen.

Soksabike's community liason consultant, Sothea talking with Rohal Suong leaders

We made it!

Fishing industry along the Sangker River

Not only was the weather perfect for our bike ride to Rohal Suong but we got to spend the morning learning about Rohal Suong’s community projects from the community leaders. The Rohal Suong community is quite progressive and ahead of it’s time in terms of their level of environmental and wealth creation knowledge and awareness. Their projects include:

• A fishing conservation dam 3m deep and 50 metres in diametre and that provides 800 people with fish all year round;
• A community bank with nearly $10,000 worth of capital and 106 members where the majority of loans are related to farming and moto taxi businesses;
• A reforestation project where the community are replanting flooded areas and have started to see their fish supply increase as a result.

Soksabike’s guides and the Rohal Suong community want visitors to Cambodia to learn about these projects and how it is improving the livelihoods for families of the Rohal Suong community.

Boat to Bak Preah

After a banquet of fish, soup, veggies and of course rice for lunch we took a three and a half hour boat trip north along the Sangker River and made it to Bak Preah.

We were greeted by the Vice Commune Leader, Mr Ou Chan and the Village Leader, Mr Deng Saheim who invited us for tea. We discussed the potential for Soksabike to bring guests to Bak Preah and were taken on a tour of the village all the while learning about the businesses and situation of the people.

Jan and Sothea enjoying some rice wine with Bak Preah's community leaders

We talked about guests getting to:

• See the stilt housing unique to floating villages;
• Learn about the fishing industry;
• Go fishing Cambodian style;
• Help prepare traditional Cambodian food;
• Spend time with some families in Bak Preah;
• Play volleyball;
• Camp out in the community hall.

The visit to Bak Preah was also extremely challenging in parts for me and the Soksabike team, as the Bak Preah’s community leaders shared their struggles as a community situated on water for half the year. This isolation has caused a lack of education infrastructure and makes it difficult for Bak Preah to get their farming produce and other products to market. The most critical issues Bak Preah is currently facing is the river running out of fish, as so many livelihoods are dependent on the fishing industry. We are now thinking long and hard about what this community really needs and is tourism the right solution for this community? Are they ready for a potential influx of money and resources?

Housing in Bak Preah - built for the rainy season when it becomes a floating village

It was a fascinating 2 days being immersed in a completely different way of living in comparison to dry land Cambodia and we were thoroughly looked after by both the Bak Preah and Rohal Suong communities. They are keen to work with Soksabike and it would be one of the first exposures these communities have had to organised tourism.

Highlights of the trip:

• Building the relationship with both villages as it certainly developed over the the course of the trip and by the end we started to get much clearer information and insight into their expectations and needs;
• Rohal Suong not being interested in financial compensation for hosting guests on a home stay but rather compensated through skills sharing – they would like Kinyei to teach 7 of there members computer and proposal writing skills;
• Learning how to grind rice flour using a traditional grinder (tobal kun);
• Having a round of rice wine or 5 with community leaders from both villages and them pulling a brand new DVD player out of a Sony box and connecting it to a car battery to play Khmer music videos in the dark where there is no electricity – bazar contrast of worlds;
• Learning how the fishing community survive and are working to combat the fish shortage.

Kids in Bak Preah fascinated by Sopheap's camera and photography skills

Traditional rice grinder for making rice flour

Challenges for the new tour:

• Analysing the potential economic and development impacts (both good and bad) that tourism exposure will bring to Bak Preah;
• Ensuring we give guests a ‘day in the life of a countryside Cambodian’ experience without overwhelming them.

Where to from here:

• Maintaining and building on our relationships with Rohal Suong and Bak Preah;
• Start computer training with Rohal Suong community leaders in September;
• Test the road for cycling to Bak Preah after the rainy season;
• Do an impact study on tourism in Bak Preah.

It would be great to get your thoughts on our new community development 3 day bicycle tour by sharing what you want to do, see and learn about in countryside Cambodia.

A dried banana maker is preparing the bananas for drying

Coming to Soksabike’s half day tour is the new dried banana stop. The dried banana stop is the was discovered by our tour guide by Sopheap who was cycling to Ekphnom area in Donteav Village in March and found a community of dried banana producers who were really interesting.  To get to the dried banana stop we go along the road to Ekphnom where there are many villagers who  work as dried banana makers. In our project we have selected one family who make dried banana and are willing to open their home to Soksabike guests and share their livilihood skills with us.  The family prepare for our visits by offering a place for our guests to sit and taste their product. When we arrive there, we talk with the family about how they make their dried banana, their lifestyle, fruit in Cambodia, where they sell their product and how much it sells for.

The banana stop owner is very friendly and informative. Any questions that our tour guides have, she answers us as best she can. She is around 40 years old and is not yet married. She lives with her old mother and her mother also doesn’t have a husband.

Upon arriving at the Banana stop, we talk about the fruit in Cambodia. There are numerous kinds of fruit in Cambodia. The fruits can be used to make cakes or just sold in their original form. If we talk about the banana fruit, there are many kinds of products that Cambodians use bananas for. However, the villagers in Donteav Village mostly make dried banana. Cambodia is also renowned for its fresh fruit that is grown without the use of chemicals. Dried banana is very popular in Cambodia and most people like to eat it. For foreigners to get a sense of what Cambodian dried banana is like, I have been told to describe it as a ‘banana roll up’.

Drying the bananas under the sun take around three hours

One more thing the tour guide will tell you is the way to make dried banana. To make dried banana use the following steps:

• Step 1: peel ripe bananas
• Step 2: cut banana vertically into long thin slices
• Step 3: put banana slices on bamboo lattice out the front of your house to dry in the sun
• Step 4: Do it all again for a new batch so that more bananas are being prepared while others are drying (drying takes around 3-4 hours).

This work uses human labour rather than machines and it is therefore difficult to generate significant profit from it. Many people know about her product and go directly to her house to get them, but even at maximum production the seller can only support her everyday diet (fish, rice, etc) on her sales.

After talking about the dried banana industry in Battambang and learning how it is made guests get to try the banana hot of the bamboo lattice. Dried banana tastes both sour and sweet. We can eat dried banana as a snack on tour and guests can purchase some for later. Cambodian people like to eat dried banana when they feel tired or hungry.

We are excited to take guests to this new stop on the Soksabike tour and look forward to educating visitors on Battambang’s dried banana industry as well as the different ways Cambodian’s package and sell fruit. Be sure to come and check it out when you’re in Battambang next!

On the 28th May the Soksabike Team headed for the Tonle Sap Lake to conduct some research for a new tour. Despite a total of one person on the trip actually knowing how to ride one, the team had hired real motorbikes for the scouting trip citing possibly bad roads. The group of six took off full of confidence that a clutch was something you learned by doing.

The research team on street 1.5 ready to depart

They were farewelled by the cafe staff here at Soksabike HQ with cheery “good luck’s” and one understated

“I do not have a comfortable feeling when I see them ride like that.”

Why Tonle Sap Lake?

As a bit of background, the team had come up with the Tonle Sap as our next tour destination for a few reasons:

• No one else takes guests there from Battambang, yet it’s a fascinating area, culturally and ecologically including unique local livelihoods and floating schools and villages
• The area hosts an abundance of innovative ecological and conservation focused community projects
• The fertile land, periodically flooded, offers some stunningly beautiful landscape

Uh Oh…

The road we took followed the Sangker River away from Battambang Town and turned to dirt after 15km after which the road got progressively worse. We continued in search of Bak Preah, our first village stop en route to the Tonle Sap, slogging it out through pot holes and mud trenches for three hours until we arrived at an impassable water mass. Locals confirmed our fears – that although we were on the right (narrow, muddy) track, already too much rain had fallen this year to reach Bak Preah by road.

The roads just kept getting muddier...

At this point one of the guides offered,

“my feeling is about the petrol and whether we will have enough.”

A good point considering it was rice, corn and watermelon fields as far as the eye could see – and the normally ubiquitous roadside fuel stops had been utterly absent. In our first cautious decision of the day we decided to change plans and instead pay a visit to a conservation fishing community in the area that Chettra had worked with previously through his Ecotourism minor at university called Rohowsuong Village.

Saved by Rohowsuong

This was easier to find, and upon arrival we met with the community leaders to learn about their conservation project and request permission to visit the conservation project with tourists in the future. They advised us that with a commitment to abide by the community rules and some advance notice, visitors were most welcome.

From there we headed down to the man-made dam that had been constructed to conserve fish during the dry season to ensure food sustainability all year round. Surrounded by rice fields and mangroves to retain water, the dam is also protected by the community from any fishing activity and serves as an intensive untouched breeding ground during the dry season. When the rain comes and the dam rises the water and fish spill out into the surrounding channels and rice fields where people can fish up to 5kg per day.

Taking notes at the fishing conservation dam in Rohowsuong

While the project was instigated by a collection of NGOs, the Rohowsuong community has made it its own over the last 5 years and reaped great benefits from it. The team spoke with many of the community members and came away really excited about the project and the prospect of bringing guests to see and learn about food sustainability in rural Cambodia.

What’s next?

We arrived back at the office at 3:30pm and capped off the day with a lightning whiteboard reflection session. The main question was about whether or not the Tonle Sap was still a feasible destination given the road conditions during the rainy season. To this, Sothea and the guides gave a unanimous “yes” and immediately started brainstorming solutions to the rain.

While the day did not go to plan at all, we had an amazing experience exploring as a team and we’re excited about bringing Rohowsuoung and stops like it to guests. We are committed to expanding our efforts to let people see these amazing Cambodian communities in a responsible and community conscious way.

While these destinations will be accessible by bike by the time the dry season rolls around, the plan for now is to take another research trip, this time by boat. The team are already looking forward to it, despite, I’m sure, no one knowing how to drive one of them either.

Understandably, the romance of the rice field overcomes you sometimes; here is tour guide Sopheap at a rice field rest stop serenading two guests with the Khmer ballad Komhok kroop yang mok pi roop khnum, or All Mistakes are Because of Me. Cambodia’s definitely got talent.

Sopheap sings a Khmer Ballad from Kinyei on Vimeo.

On a Soksabike tour, guide Sopheap sings about “Komhok kroop yang mok pi roop khnum”, or “All Mistakes are Because of Me” during a rest in a rice field.

Soksabike was recently written up in Bayon by a guest this January. Check out what they had to say: