Through bustling traffic in the dusty and smoky town of Phnom Penh, a group of cyclodrivers are taking tourists on a journey of discovery. Sitting in the open front of the cyclo, with the driver at the back, I was transported back in time, feeling like an elegant Chinese Lord riding in his rickshaw to collect his taxes from the peasants, as they did back in the good old days.
Packed with all kinds of vehicles, Phnom Penh is rapidly becoming more and more urbanized. More and more people from rural areas are moving into this big city looking for employment. Phnom Penh has a population of one million who are packed into an area of five square kilometers. This is out of the entire country’s population of fourteen million. The town’s economy has been thriving on the growth of tourism for the last five years. With this fast pace of economic growth and urbanization, it is inevitably that Phnom Penh is experiencing environmental problems.
‘It is very good, very exciting’ said a tourist from Canada. “Riding along the Sihamouni Blvd, I could see the locals looking at us. Some are smiling and waving. Cyclos are a good idea to promote clean, non-polluting transportation, thus protecting the environment, and providing tourists with a fascinating travel experience. The government should definitely support it.”
This is the opinion of one of the tourists from Canada who love to support the cyclo foundation in Cambodia. With tourists embracing cyclos, poor drivers who are all from the lowest class of society in the rural countryside of Cambodia, compete with other noisy and smoky vehicles ranging from old worn-out motorbikes, tuk tuks and luxurious and expensive vehicles like Land Cruisers, and Toyota Camrys. At times while riding, I found myself sandwiched by motorbikes and land cruisers on all sides. Horns are over used by all other motor vehicle drivers to intimidate our cyclo driver.
“It’s noisy, dusty and smoky, and it’s not an easy ride on the streets of Phnom Penh. You’ve got to be very careful,” said Paula, 22, a polite young cyclo man from Kampong Thom Province. “Constant blowing of horns can make you feel irritated, even though everyone has right of way and the streets belong to everyone”.
With no sign of worry on his face, Paula tried his best to ensure a safe and fun ride for the tourists who enjoy this great capital city of Cambodia. The cyclo drivers show no fear of the horns trying to force them to move faster, or run them off the street. They still kept riding calmly.
“The noisy horn is quite normal in Phnom Penh. I am used to it especially during the rush hour. But most annoying is the smoke emitted from those old vehicles. I don’t know about other countries, but here in Phnom Penh it is really bad.” said Paula.
Paula is among thousands of other cyclo drivers who came from the rural areas to look for a better opportunity in life and ended up driving cyclo for tourists as a living.
‘Driving a cyclo or working in any tourism related job is a start for us in Phnom Penh because you don’t require any educational background, paper work, or complicated skills. You can do it as long as you can pedal. Fortunately I was lucky joining the CycloFoundation which helped find a cheap cyclo to rent and provided basic training in English as well as helping to find us customers.
When asked how he found and joined the cyclo foundation, Paula gave credit to friends and relatives who persuaded him to join the not-for-profit organization which has been set up to help cyclo drivers from rural areas. However, according to Sambat, the Cyclo Aid Project Coordinator, the cyclo foundation was set up, not only to provide support to the cyclo drivers, but to help alleviate poverty and reduce or solve the environmental and social problems through using cyclos.
‘We came up with the idea of helping cyclo drivers first because they are a group of desperate men from the countryside who came to the big city to look for a job’, says Sambat.
“Yes, these people are desperate in terms of their lack of education, qualifications, skills or money. They don’t have money to invest in anything. They don’t have a place to stay in town, they sleep in their cyclos. Imagine what it would be like when it rained” said Sambat.
‘They came to the city with friends or were persuaded by friends, and they can’t find any other job because of their lack of qualifications. ”Cyclo driving is for those living below the poverty line and most of these drivers are too poor to even live in poor communities. Many cyclo drivers live in their vehicles on the streets of Phnom Penh” .
The foundation will provide them with a place where they can take a shower, socialize and get together for their regular meetings and training sessions. Driving cyclos enables them to earn money from tourists with the possibility of big tips if their clients are happy with them.
“Basically we have no public buses and the more we grow the more we will turn to motor vehicles because of their convenience, fast pace, and better social status. Now in Phnom Penh we have some motorbike gangsters who enjoy causing air and noise pollution. They think they are better than others, just because of their irritating motor bikes”. ”So through this project we can reflect on the social and environmental situation in Phnom Penh. Also through this project we run an anti-smoking campaign as it is related to the environment. I am pretty sure that the cyclo drivers are not only proud of their clean ride without emitting any carbon out of their cyclo but also proud of their clean life with no smoking puffing out of their mouths”.
“The project here makes sure everyone quits smoking and provides a rehabilitation program to help them achieve this. We are really working on a way to make our city clean’ confirmed Sambat. “The government also invited us to join the campaign or even to run an environmental campaign. So the project will definitely benefit the entire Cambodian community.”
The project currently supports over a thousand cyclo drivers from poorer rural areas. All of them join the anti-smoking campaign. All of them must train beforehand to quit smoking or train in a course related to environmental sciences.
However, currently through the training and rehabilitation program, only a hundred of them at the moment receive any benefit directly from tourism. So the project will definitely benefit the entire Cambodian community. If you would like to support the cyclo project, please contact Sombat at: www.cyclo.org.uk.
By Kris Dhiradityakul From Bangkok
언어학자이며 역사학자
인도차이나의 발전을 위하여 노력하며
문화소개를 위한 열의가 크다.
