Cambodia family cycling holiday
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
Plastic usage is a big problem in Asia so we use large refillable water bottles to fill your drink bottle. The drink bottles we supply are standard bicycle bottles that we wash after each tour. Our meals on cycling days are taken at local restaurants to both help spread the money that we are bringing to Cambodia as well as reducing waste that would be generated by picnic meals.
This is a supported tour so a vehicle follows the group. In order to try and reduce the vehicle requirements we have custom built a special bike carrying trailer for our van so that we don't need a separate truck to carry bikes. In this way we are able to run these trips needing only a single van for small to medium sized groups reducing both traffic on the roads as well as petrol usage.
On our visit to Kompong Pluk a portion of the entrance fee goes towards maintenance and preservation of the unique ecology of Tonle Sap as well as supporting the local community.
Our small office is, apart from accounting requirements, paperless. We deal with customers electronically and do not print large brochures to distribute. By remaining only as an online presence we reduce the wastage associated with producing annual brochures.
Community
On this cycling tour all the crew including drivers, guides and crew are locals from the region. Our team go through extensive training to prepare for their role as a bicycle guides and support staff giving them valuable skills for the future.
On this tour we visit the famous Angkor temples. Our entrance fee goes to the maintenance of and further research into the historical park. Around many of temples are children who sell souvenirs to the many tourists who visit. We encourage our clients to not buy from the children. While the children state that they do go to school many of them only attend English classes so that they are better able to sell. Parents are not encouraged to give their children a full education because of the relatively large incomes that can be earned while the children are young, cute and more able to sell souvenirs.
Being a bike tour we spend most of this tour away from the regular tourist route. We stop in towns and villages along our rides that most tourists barely notice as they drive through. Stopping in these small out of the way places allows for a wonderful level of interaction between locals and foreigners and also allows income to be spread far wider than just the vendors setup near the famous temples and sights.
On the reverse perspective of community support we can definitely say that travelling with children in a poor country like Cambodia allows our children customers to truly experience what life is like away from their relatively comfortable existence back home. It is an eye opening opportunity that children remember and adds to their their understand of the world.
Our group size is keep to a maximum of 16 clients. This is both a reflection of the limits in the accommodation of the smaller towns that we stop in and our desire to not be too over powering in our impact on a destination.
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