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Rick Barry
Oxfam Challenge Vietnam/Cambodia participant
This was, by far, one of the most amazing experiences I've had in my life. The people on the trip were a diverse bunch, ranging in age from 18 to mid-50s, ranging in ability from people who ride regularly to one woman who had never been on a bike before she started preparing for this trip, and from many walks of life – students, accountants, footballers, and real estate agents …
…So after a long flight … we landed in Singapore for a nine-hour stop-over. Fortunately, Singapore airport is a pretty neat place, including koi ponds and other such niceties.
But the contrast between the structured orderliness of Singapore and the beautiful chaos of the rest of Southeast Asia was soon brought home, when we landed in Ho Chi Minh City.
After just the one day in HCM, we got right into the riding, but not before visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels outside the city. These are a network of over 250km of tunnels dug by the Viet Cong during the [Vietnam] war, and now preserved as a historical site. If this ingenuity is in any way symbolic of the rest of the Vietnamese war effort, the Americans never had a chance (hint: there may be a message in this for people who still think we can win in Iraq).
But onward with the trip! Most riding days we did between 70 and 95 km, which is not that long, but of course it was stinking hot (maybe 35 C) and though most of the roads were sealed, we did have some time on very rough dirt tracks (resulting in us looking a bit worse for wear on some days, but having fun, none the less.)
There was so much to see, and it was just so beautiful. Everything you'd associate with Southeast Asia: rice paddies, buffalos in mud holes, wonderful people, colourful markets, and amazing sunsets.
The great thing about travelling by bike is that we experienced the country on a level most tourists wouldn't. You really get to interact with the people when you cruise through a village on a bike. Kids along the road would come out and give us all high-fives, call out hello and laugh. Other folks would pull up alongside us and ride for a while and chat. Just sitting on a tour bus and flying by it all just wouldn’t be the same.
After several days of riding, we arrived in Phnom Penh and began a different phase of the trip. We took a bus out to a village about four hours away where Oxfam are running some projects. This was a great example of what international development can and should be. Central to Oxfam’s mission is that development should include empowerment. So Oxfam looks at models such as helping people gain access to loans for small scale agribusiness, fostering local technical expertise, etc. The village we visited had a number of projects going on, including developing a rice bank for farmers, using very simple methods for improving access to clean water, and textile manufacturing (using looms purchased with loans from Oxfam). We met with and talked to some of the women weaving elaborate silk scarves, and gladly bought some of their beautiful wares. OK, I bought five of them …
Of course, there’s a sadder side to Cambodia. While in Phnom Penh, I also went to the Killing Fields. If you’re not familiar with the Khmer Rouge and what they did, here are a few basics. Between 1975 and 1979, they killed between one and three million Cambodians … through forced labour, malnutrition and executions. This in a country of about nine million people, and over just four years. People who were educated, or were members of the former government, or had international ties, or were seen as a threat for any myriad of reasons, were systematically tortured and then executed.
There were Killing Fields all over, but this particular one we visited was where anyone with an education (and their friends and families - including children and babies) was executed. The victims were often bludgeoned to death to save bullets. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to know how they killed babies. Pictures and words can’t describe what I saw. The site was covered in mass graves - about two thirds of them excavated, the others left intact. … Anyone who could visit this place and not be utterly moved … I don’t know. I cried uncontrollably at what I saw.
Deep Breath.
After Phnom Penh we headed on up to Siem Reap – home of the world-famous Angkor Wat and other Khmer Empire temples from the 9th to the 12th Century. But along the way we stopped for what had to be one of the more unusual snack foods I’ve ever tried [spiders] … And before you ask - it tastes like chicken. Actually, probably closer to crab, really.
The temples are Cambodia’s claim to international fame, and rightly so. They are staggeringly beautiful. Built by a succession of kings at the height of the Khmer Empire’s power, most are in amazingly good condition considering they’d been abandoned, forgotten, and lay untended for hundreds of years, often being swallowed by the jungle. Angkor Wat alone is the largest religious building in the world, and is not surprisingly featured on Cambodia’s flag.
They call these temples one of the wonders of the world, and this is one of the few cases where I’d have to agree. As I said, it was an amazing trip. Please go to Cambodia. It’s so worth it.