Reunion with Friends: The Bike Ride
Once crossed, we continue on and it was already nearly 8am. as we turned left at the point leading to the main village in Arey Ksat, we cycled toward a locally run restaurant call Home Chamka. It was my first time being there and I was amazed with the many bikers and restaurant going enjoying breakfast there. We were lucky to get a nice spot at the end, overlooking what seemingly a natural lake/dyke. the morning breeze continued. It is nice to enjoy the hot coffee while waiting and my friends enjoy their cool drink. Hot coffee is what set my start of the day nice and promising; We finished our breakfast with quite a few photos taken; these days it is part of the norm to take photos to recall the memory :-)
We continue on with the trip. Some fellow friends said they preferred to go off the main road (which has a lot of truck and car and sharing the road with these other vehicle could be challenging for us. so we turned and found ourselves cycling along the road toward new gated community - Borey Chaktomuk. Quite a few development there but the morning breeze continues to capture my attention. The breeze and the fact that the sun did not come out means it was not too hot. Pond with lotus flowers - so beautifully pinky - fresh and present themselves proudly against the morning breeze makes us feel lucky that we can still able to see the lotus within short cycling distance.
Some of my friend remarks is that soon the pond will be filled for other development project and we will have to ride/drive further to see it.
What I observed along the road where these real estate development project are happening is the rain shack of workers huts along both side. There are childing running around, men playing basket balls and women mingling around with their morning chores. The contradiction of the wealth and richness of those owners of the flat/villa and the poverty as seen by the workers and their make-shift hut is a reality in one glance. How many days/months/year the workers has to do their work in order for them to be able to afford a flat? I don't think I really have the answer to the question I usually ask. But I hope the question ponder someone else reading this. Cambodia has developed and the improvement has been on display; they are so obvious a display of material wealth and societal inequality whenever you cast a glance in the city: Lexus driver and road cleaner; Fine restaurant and card-food seller. Societal elite and the homeless/street beggar. Someone like myself and my group biking for our physical exercise and those pulling the bike with basket of products to sell for their daily income and survival.
So we moved around with our cycling and took an off-road into the village road. This also a reality within a painted development. Just less than 500m from the fine housing project are villagers with poor road conditions along the muddy path. The rain the nights before has done its job to make the slippery move for our bike, yet we managed it fine and no one make a great fall. We turned back onto the main road as the sun started to wake up and showed its power via the 10am heat. We biked back to cross the ferry back to the city size.
On the crowded ferry, masked on, I was loss in my thought and the songs I was listening to, while gazing at the vastness of the Mighty Mekong in its four channels splits right in front of the Royal palace. Ferry crossing; fisherman casting their net; big boat with the powerful machine for the river-sand dredging; While it sounds like a busy activities on the rivers, as per my observation, the river systemin Cambodia - esp in Phnom Penh - still yet the yet-to-be-explore-and-exploit potential for the local economy. We haven't navigate the river enough; we did not promote local transportation and local tourism on the river itself enough. And we can do much more had we have the will to do so.
As the ferry stilt itself not too far from the bank to wait for its embarkment point, the fine Sunday ray shines its power over my poor head. I am one of a kind that is most vulnerable to the heat stroke; those 5mn or so seems such a long time to endure and I kept drinking water from my bottle. We finally landed and I was happy to continue my ride. I think our exhaustion causes us to suggest that a stop for the coffee would be the right thing to do. So we parked our dirty bike at the finest locally owned Brown Coffee and order our preferred drink to cool ourselves and replenish.
My bike ride provided the chance to reconnect and catch up with my friends, make new friend and enjoy chit-chat about lives and work and share several laughing moment. She said the Redi appears arrogant and the owner seems too proud.
And I could not agree more!
See the track from the farthest member who ride yesterday here: https://www.facebook.com/messenger_media/?thread_id=6432832940092268&attachment_id=4441339752586125&message_id=mid.%24gABbaoKJLK2yDTnU1b19HS9Vw5Sjj
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