Wandering with the Wows: Cambodia By Bike

Finding Inspiration

The other weekend we had a grand ole time in Portland, Oregon, with lots of running around town, drinking delicious beers, and stuffing our faces with incredible food (see below).  But the best part of it was hanging out with a few awesome peeps.  And not the ones that Mr. 1500 dunked in his beer; the ones who are also on their journey to FI (or are already there).

 

   

 

One of them being a fellow Chautauqua attendee who we met in Ecuador last October.  Wendy was one of the very first people that I chatted with on the first day in Ecuador and I still remember her calling me out (graciously of course) on how busy I was and how real she was when it came to life.

 

So after a few amazing beers in Portland, I decided to get real and ask her for feedback about our blog.  Being that she is a friend and also a reader of our blog, I wanted a truthful and honest opinion, including what we are doing well and also what we could improve upon.

 

The feedback she gave us was utterly on point.  One thing she mentioned was how she wanted to hear more about our travels.  And while I realized that we have briefly disclosed our travel plans, we really haven't written too much about them.

 

I'm changing that today.

 

In addition, I also have to give credit to my other source of inspiration for this post. Fritz over at the Retirement Manifesto, recently wrote a post about his new hobby "Bictography" aka the act of bicycle photography or riding a bike with the sole purpose of taking photographs.  Somehow I started this same hobby while in Cambodia around the same time he did, but he gets all the credit for the name for sure.

 

Out of necessity though I had to put my own little spin on this whole bictography thing.  While Fritz stopped to take pictures, I was forced to add the extra challenge of taking the pictures while still in motion.  Why you might ask? Well, we were part of a bike tour, there were tons of cool things to take pictures of, and we only had a limited amount of time.  Failure to finish the tour in time would cause me to miss the ferry boat back to the city.  So I schemed up a way that I could still take all the photos I wanted and not miss the boat literally.

 

Exhibit A: Ferry boat to the island

Below I will share some of my bictography-in-motion photos.  And I'm actually pretty proud of my work too.  While some might be a tad blurry, that just proves that I was in fact in motion during the taking of the picture.  Its pretty cool to look back at a snapshot of life during our time there.

 

Bictography-In-Motion

To help set the scene, here's a video of me in action (the sound & music is from the wedding we pass):

[video width="540" height="960" m4v="http://wafflesonwednesday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_2687.m4v"][/video]

 

      

 

Here is Mr. Wow cruising with some of the other people from our group, as well as one of the many stunning temples we passed, and some cute kids playing in a wagon.

 

      

 

These are 3 of my favorite pictures from the tour.  First is a man with all his goods, heading to the market to sell them.  Check out that balance! The middle picture is one of the many dogs that we passed, just waiting (and totally posing) for me to take his picture.  And the third picture is of a bike with 3 little girls on it.  They joyfully smiled and waved at us as we passed by.

 

      

 

Of course I had to post some fresh food that we saw along our journey.  There were coconuts and bananas everywhere!  Honestly, I actually never really cared for coconuts, but once in Cambodia, they quickly became one of my favorite things.  Nothing beat some fresh coconut water in the middle of the day when the temperature was in the high 90s.  You know what they say, a coconut a day keeps the doctor away.

 

      

 

We also saw some young monks hanging out, a boy carrying some goods down the street, as well as some boys playing on a muddy field. I forgot to mention that it had been pouring rain the entire morning before our bike riding adventure, leaving massive puddles and mud everywhere.  Just a few more obstacles that we had to pay attention to and attempt to avoid, but the boys didn't seem to mind.

 

  

 

At one point we passed this school that was completed decorated with plastic water bottles and lids.  It was actually hard to tell that it was recycled goods until we got up close it.  During our time in Cambodia, it was hard not to notice how much plastic is used, from plastic bags, to straws, to water bottles, everything came in plastic.  I even saw some vendors pour coconut water from a fresh coconut into a plastic bag so it was easier for people to transport.  And being that they don't have a reasonable way to recycle all the plastic, they simply sweep it off to the side of the road and light it on fire. It was definitely neat seeing how this school found a good use for all the plastic by turning it into charming art.

 

         

 

About midway through the tour, a few of us turned off the main road and stumbled upon this awesome monastery.  The entire road leading up to it was lined with beautiful winged statues and animals.  They were unbelievable to look at! I seriously could have spent hours here.

 

      

 

We were also lucky enough to pass by a local wedding, with everyone all dressed up and music playing. I could not get over how ornate all the decorations were.  If you didn't watch the video above, go watch it now.

 

      

 

Quite possibly one of my favorite things to take pictures of while on this tour were the cows.  I loved their bold, white color and how they stood out against the bright, green grass. By the end, I easily had about 50-60 photos of these majestic creatures, but figured I spare you from all of them and narrowed them down to only 3.  If you want to see any more, just say the word :)

 

All in all, my bictography-in-motion adventure was a great experience.  Even though it was raining in the morning, it luckily stopped right as we were getting on our bikes.  So even though it was a bit muddy, we were at least dry.  And I think I did a pretty good job navigating around the endless obstacles, i.e. dogs in the road, potholes, motorbikes, puddles, all while taking photos too.  I can honestly say that I managed all of that very well, despite coming within inches of a motorbike parked in the middle of the road.  I came close to hitting it, but I didn't, I promise.  Yet that didn't stop everyone who was behind me from yelling at me.   I clearly was too busy taking a picture and not paying enough attention to the road ahead of me.

 

What do you think?  Do I have a future in bicycling photos?