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01/04/2007: "First PEPY Ride post!!"

Hey, this is Dave Rodwin writing from Battambang, which I almost certainly misspelled, but in any case is the 2nd largest city in Cambodia. It was formerly the capital during the French colonial period. It's quite a busy city, but in a very different way from Siem Reap. Siem Reap, which is so closely connected to Angkor Wat, is a tourist hub, and tuk-tuk taxis and hotels are everywhere, as are depressingly young children begging and selling trinkets or postcards. I was talking with Maryann (another rider and longtime PEPY member) about Battambang today, and we were wondering how different it is now from what it was in, say, 1960. My guess is not very.

Anyway, on to the ride. We've had 3 solid ride days so far, and today is our first rest day. On the first day we biked from Siem Reap to the PEPY Ride school, located in Chanleas Dai, a small village to the West. The ride (67 km) was mostly over unpaved, dirt roads, and it was rough. The dirt is so dry, and whenever a vehicle (like a pickup truck loaded with 25 monks in orange tunics, or a truck with hay stacked 25 feet high with two passengers perched ON TOP of it all) drove by, lots of red dust would whip up. That wasn't my favorite part. What WAS great, though, was seeing the smiles and waves and hearing the greetings that the children shouted to us whenever we rode by. They would run to the road from their wooden houses (usually with thatched rice-straw for walls and roof) waving and yelling "Hello! Goodbye!" It's hard to imagine feeling more welcome, and it more than made up for the dust.

We frequently stop for water, which is sold out of the signature orange cooler and usually costs 500 Riel, or 12.5 cents. We have these electrolyte tablet things from a company called NUUN that, when dropped into the water, seem to make a difference. And Clif Bar donated a bunch of bars, so each rider has some that we can ration to ourselves, and that definitely is nice on long stretches between villages.

Yeah, so the first night we stayed at the PEPY house at the PEPY Ride school, which was nice. The kids there are so amazingly friendly and even though my first time there was only about a week ago (give or take a few days), it already has a familiar, home-ish feel to it. On day 2 (59 km) we rode to Sisaphon, another city that I am most likely misspelling. Our butts were hurting due in large part to all the bumps on the road, and some of us got some nasty sunburns, but we made it. Simon Seed and I made a 45 minute stop at a random high school, and got a full tour care of a math teacher who is totally fluent in English. We'd hurt the stats about education in Cambodia, and were interested to see a high school, as opposed to a primary school (The PEPY Ride school). Since high schools are so few and far between, many students actually sleep at the school and just go home on vacation days. The grounds were pretty nice because the school got some money from the Dutch (or Belgians, I can't remember). The library was tiny (about 100 books), but had about 10 students in there reading. High schools teach grades 7-12, and this one had 1300 total students, 550 of whom are girls. Our math-teacher-guide actually took us into a few classes, and the students were SO happy to see us (hopefully only part of the reason is that it provided a break from physics class). To my surprise, some students English ability was quite proficient. Our guide also told us that this year's 7th grade was unusually small because many students had to drop out due to an inability to pay for school (that could include their family's ability to have one member not an active wage-earner, I think). In any case, our time there was a great experience, and gave Simon and I something to tell the group about over dinner.

Day 3 was a bit longer, and contained a school visit for most, but was MUCH easier because the road was paved the whole way. I never thought I would sing the praises of pavement but oh man, it was a godsend. I think the rest of the ride is paved, so that's nice. Anyway, the smooth road gave us a chance to concentrate on what was happening around us, and look at the sights and scenes and villages a bit more deeply. That made the ride go quicker, too.

Well this internet cafe is incredibly hot so I'm going to sign off for now. Later!