Daily Schedule

We’ve finally figured out that if we’re up by 5 am and fed and on the road by 6 we’ve got at least three good hours before the real heat sets in which makes everything more enjoyable. It also means we’ll have more interactions with people. Life here starts at sunrise. By 5:30 everyone is up going about their business. People are cheerful and full of energy. By 10 am most people are settling into their hammocks for the first of a series of naps they’ll take throughout the day. And by noon there are only warm bottles of water to be had because all the ice is melted in the coolers at the stalls along the side of the road and no one really wants to be roused from their sleep to sell them to us anyway.

This schedule is also good because it means that we get to really see life happening in the villages we ride through. A woman bathing beside a well in a patterned sarong, a group of old men squatting in a circle playing a card game, one laughing, two boys herding cows across the street from one paddy field to another, a family spreading rice out on woven mats to dry in the sun, long lines of giggling children walking and bicycling to school in their perfectly starched navy and white uniforms.

We stopped for water the other day at a very typical set up, a cooler by the road in front of someone’s hut. After a while man rolled out of a hammock to take our money. While we were sitting at a table in his yard I saw what looked like fire crackers or incense splayed out in the yard of the hut next door. I walked over to the fence to look and he saw me and came over. He opened the gate and brought me next door where an entire extended family was lounging beneath their hut organizing incense sticks. They yelled some things to me and I talked back. None of us had any idea what was being said but one of them happily ushered me back to a shed behind the hut where more people were working, actually making the incense. It was my mini dream come true! I’m always plagued by the question, “Where does this come from?” Every day I use things, buy things and eat things whose origins are a complete mystery to me. I take for granted that so many things that pass through my hands are physically made or grown by another person. At least now incense can be checked off my list…

The same day we pulled over to eat a mango and a watermelon under the shade of a tree. There was a woman selling gas there and she was lying in her hammock. She got us 2 plastic chairs and watched while we ate. We offered her some watermelon but she didn’t want any (I don’t blame her we were filthy). Within minutes there were at least 7 people standing around smiling at us, inspecting our bags, my hair, our clothes. We’ve become entirely used to being stared at by large groups of people for prolonged periods of time. We’re like a run down version of the Olsen Twins, we gather crowds but not the paparazzi. Anyway, when we were packing up to leave the woman came out of her shed with a mango and a watermelon to replace the ones we had just eaten and insisted on giving them to us. We tried to give her money but she refused to take it. We’ve had multiple people wave to us from the side of the road, inviting us to eat with them, we’ve been given bottles of water. The people we’ve had the chance to meet have been so observant and generous.

I have pretty much been in a continual state of awe since we began riding in Cambodia. If I’m awake and outside of a hotel room I am likely incredulous. Experiencing our surroundings so slowly on our bikes keeps us alert and aware in a way that regular travel never has.