Well we did it! The 4th Truants Ride was completed a few weeks ago, and, with well over £333,000 – half a beast! - (and counting) raised by this Cambodia Ride it takes us way past the £1m mark raised in total since our first ride in Jan 2010 for our 3 wonderful children’s charities. I would like to thank all of you who entered my recent Auction for your great generosity, this raised £18,341 – so thanks to Gabriela, Carlos, Tom, Alberto, Wes, Luca, Alexandre and Vince.
And thanks also to those who donated on my justgiving page, and, of course, if any of you would also care to donate to excellent causes there is still time to do so, just go to:
www.justgiving.com/Rod-Smallwood14
In a couple of weeks’ time we will post here the details of the Cambodia Ride website which along with announcing the final total raised will also (we hope) be of some interest with tales, photos and movies of what we got up to and Truants falling off bikes, as many did in the dust and off-road mayhem of this one, myself included .
But in the meantime here is some info on what we did and found out in
Cambodia .We certainly discovered another remarkable country via it’s
farm tracks and back roads and found a beautiful people whose seemingly
universal first instinct is to smile, despite their hideous recent
national history.
For the genocidal sequence of civil war and invasion, that started as
the Vietnam war ended, lasted so long that there are just very few
Cambodians much older than 30 left alive. And as we learned on our rest
stop at the Landmine Museum, the pain continues indefinitely with many
millions of mines and unexploded bombs still to be discovered in the
jungles and thus still blowing people apart. But while we learned too
of ongoing corruption and generally poor government, we also saw an
entrepreneurial people and economy headed in the right direction without
obvious bureaucratic brakes and it seemed to us that the new young
Cambodia has a great future. Their vast ancient temples reveal that
they have been a great civilisation and society before and, though there
are only 14m or so of them left, the land is super productive, and
their culture welcoming and honest. You should go and see it for
yourself, it’s beautiful.
For our part we did absolutely all we could to support the local
economy whenever we were not pedalling away. Our 3 days in the saddle
took us through the morning traffic of Siem Reap, on out amidst the
tuk-tuks, mopeds and tourist traffic to the temples of Angkor Wat, where
we would break to rest up a bit by climbing innumerable vertiginous
stone stairways built, as ever, to get closer to ancient gods. The
temples were fascinating and mostly in amazing order given a millennium
spent buried in the rainforest. But most of our 3 days cycling was
spent winding through mile upon mile of rice paddies on farmer’s paths
and dirt roads and the odd 12 mile stretch of perfect tarmac, which,
sod’s law, arrived at the same time as a blazing sun and strong
headwind. Our developing skills as ‘pelotonniers’ helped us get through
that bit, though when on sandy tracks atop rice-paddy dykes we worked
out that it’s best to stay well clear of each other and let the fallers
fall without you then riding over them. Rough roads go with rural beauty
and as the miles and the pain mounted day by day, so the roads got
worse and worse, ending with a long stretch of rutted mud to ensure we
felt we have given our sponsors plenty of suffering!
But there was always something beautiful or fascinating to break up the
tedium of grinding out the miles. A school where the 10 year olds
were learning English, so we took an impromptu class encouraged by the
staff and to the huge amusement of the kids who had surely never seen
anything quite like us before, or exploring incredible floating
villages, each (substantial) one-room home towering 60 feet or more up
in the air atop a forest of 2 story wooden poles. The fishermen’s way
of life is shaped by a huge rise in the floodwaters in each rainy season
and huge fertile lake they live above. They descend down long flights
of steps to patrol the mangrove swamps in ancient, leaky, but
indestructible teak-built long boats, mend their nets and occasionally
wave to the tourists whose lives could not be more different to theirs.
And on our return to base we had plenty of chance to relax in the
back-packer heaven that is Siem Reap city, where we routinely made the
next days’ cycling far harder, by enjoying each other’s company far too
long into the night
So for the pain we have no-one to blame but ourselves, and while of
course we cover all our own costs, it’s YOU we have to thank or the
gain. We know that we can only do the good we do because of your
response to our call, every 18 months or so. What motivates us is the
causes we serve and your amazing generosity. We’ll keep it up as long
as you do!
Thank you so very much.
Rod