Tour Related News

Spreading the Lessons We Learn through Teaching Teachers

By Daniela Papi

We are learning so much here—through our mistakes, our successes, and the people and programs we meet along this PEPY path. The first on our list of goals for PEPY Tours is to "Offer educational tours that inspire people to be more responsible donors, travelers, and global citizens," but spreading that impact without growing our tours too much is a difficult task. As such, we partnered up with Where There Be Dragons, an organization we respect immensely that has set the bar for educational travel for youth, to design the first "Cambodia Educators Course on Development." This course for teachers was designed to model the experiential education approach of both Dragons and PEPY to teachers through the framework of development in Cambodia, and inspire them to then go out into the world and share these ideas with their students.

Tours: An Enlightening Way to Travel in Cambodia

Yut started working with PEPY as a temple guide at the end of last year and was instantly a hit with tour participants. His calm manner and imaginative way of explaining things captured the attention of all those he led through the famous temples of Angkor, and his background in Buddhism gave a deeper understanding of Cambodia’s prevailing religion. From the age of 13 to 25, Yut lived as a Theravada Buddhist monk in both Cambodia and Thailand, where he studied at a Buddhist university in Chiang Mai. His experiences as a monk make for fascinating anecdotes and his analogies, ideas, and Buddhist teachings have played heavily into his trip leading with PEPY. On a recent trip of high school students visiting from the United States, Yut explained the Noble Eightfold Path and taught the students one “way” per day. The students keyed into this idea and were keen to learn more about the “way of the day” and put them into practice. With this positive response, Yut’s creative teachings have become more and more a prevalent part of PEPY’s educational tours and have inspired a new type of tour altogether.

While we in the West are probably most familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, PEPY’s Buddhism tours offer participants the opportunity to discover and learn about one of the religion’s oldest schools, Theravada Buddhism, against the beautiful and diverse backdrop of contemporary Cambodia. Participants can learn about the Noble Eightfold Path (8 ways in 8 days), see how Buddhist and Cambodian traditions have intertwined to become today’s customs and culture, and experience Cambodia through its spectacular temples and its peaceful monks. While Buddhism is most widely considered an Asian religion, these tours will teach participants about how many basic Buddhist principles can be applied in daily life, in the Western world.

The tours will include visits to the world famous Angkorian temples for a chance to learn about the conflicts in history between Hinduism and Buddhism, rural homestays in a community-based project near both ancient and practicing Buddhist temples, as well as opportunities to learn about NGO work in Cambodia, and think about how this plays into and is sometimes a part of the religious influences that are present in Cambodia. All the while, Yut will share his knowledge of Buddhism and lead participants in self reflection exercises and group discussions to really get a grasp of Buddhist teachings. The aim of these tours is for participants to walk away with a deeper understanding of one of the lesser known schools of Buddhist thought, a richer and more diverse experience of Cambodian culture and history, and a new outlook to take home.

Keep an eye on the PEPY Tours website over the coming weeks for more information on these tours!

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A Different Kind of School Trip

As a school student, my class trips often involved long, uncomfortable bus journeys to “dull” museums, or activities that were “just not cool” to the mischievous young child or the stroppy teenager in me. At school we were always appreciative of the rare opportunity to do something fun and invigorating, like outdoor adventure weekends, or visits to neighboring countries for exposure to a new and intriguing language and culture. Those are the types of trips that you don’t forget. But striking the balance between the educational and the exciting in a class trip can be tricky business. Here at PEPY we hope to offer trips that tread the thin line between work and play, with school trips that inspire!

In the coming months, PEPY will be leading a number of educational tours for school groups from around the world. We can’t wait to meet the inquisitive students who will be coming to experience Cambodia’s culture, take part in rural homestays, explore the Angkorian temples, learn about Cambodia’s history and take part in cultural exchanges. We are particularly looking forward to allowing not only the students participating in the trips, but also the students of Chanleas Dai the opportunity to meet and interact with their peers from around the globe. Certainly beats just having a pen pal! Though the Cambodian students have met many foreign volunteers in the past, the chance to work alongside students of a similar age, and share thoughts and ideas about their cultures, has been a new and exciting experience for them. In conjunction with the introduction of our new student-led program, Leadership for Literacy, we believe that the students who join our educational tours feel similarly empowered by their peer interaction experiences in Cambodia, and share these with their friends and communities after they return home.

So you can forget the stuffy old teachers and throw out the boring lectures—these trips offer a chance for students to really get out and see the world, to discover what education and life are like in another country, and to create lasting memories.

If you know of a school that sends students abroad for school trips, and you think they might want to learn about PEPY, connect them to us! If you are interested in bringing a group of students to Cambodia for an educational school trip yourself, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with dates you hope to travel and the type of trip you would like to create, and we will design an itinerary for you!

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May Cycling Trip

It’s been a few months since the PEPY Ride V, and now that our muscles have well and truly recovered and we’ve had time to reflect on all the videos, photos, and memories from the trip, we can feel our feet starting to itch again and hear our bicycles crying out to us. We just can’t wait that long for another chance to jump on our bikes and go out exploring PEPY-style! While the PEPY Ride offers participants a chance to explore Cambodia from corner to corner on a three week expedition, we have captured a snippet of that trip to create a southern Cambodia adventure tour. This tour is ideal for travelers out there who can’t commit the time to join our lengthier cycling tours, as this adventure is one week long in the beginning of May.

Starting and ending in Phnom Penh, the trip will visit some rural southern areas such as Kep and Kampot. While there will be plenty of traveling by bicycle, there will also be ample opportunity to relax in the beautiful surroundings of an eco-lodge in the hills, to sunbathe on a tranquil beach while sipping on cool coconuts, and to enjoy refreshing river swims.

Along the way, we will visit organizations working in the fields of community empowerment, skills training, and land protection, providing participants the first-hand experience of development work in Cambodia.

Those who join this ride through southern Cambodia will not only travel through the beautiful rural countryside, but also have a chance to spend a night in a rural homestay. As a final stop-off point on the way back to Phnom Penh, we will experience life in the Cambodian countryside while pumping and filtering our own water, taking bucket showers, and getting a chance to learn from our homestay hosts.

The trip is set to be a great adventure and there are still spots available! If you’re interested, please let us know. We’d love for you to join us!

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PEPY Ride V in Review

PEPY Journal

Five?! It seems impossible that we have just waved goodbye to all of the guests on The PEPY Ride V. Looking back on five years of multi-week cycling tours across Cambodia, it seems like we just started, but looking at the changes in how we operate our trips, it does indeed seem like a long time.

The first trip was comprised of a group of us who didn’t know Cambodia, didn’t really know where we were going each day, who thought we came here to “teach”—and left realizing we had been given an opportunity to learn.

The PEPY Ride V shared some similarities with The PEPY Ride I:

Both groups biked across Cambodia. This year’s trip spanned three weeks traveling from Siem Reap, over the top of the Tonle Sap Lake, down through the capital, Phnom Penh, and to the coast.
Both groups visited Non-Governmental Organizations, though the majority of NGOs visited by this year’s team were PEPY partners and groups we have long-term relationships with rather than one-off visits.
Both teams were made up of travelers from around the world: The PEPY Ride I consisted of six people from the USA, Canada, England, Finland, and New Zealand. The PEPY Ride V consisted of eighteen people from the USA, Australia, Cambodia, Canada, England, and New Zealand.

Some of the things which made The PEPY Ride V unique:

We had the largest age span of any PEPY Ride on this trip (17 to 65 – though Eli was quick too point out his memory lapses… as he says it, he “forgot to grow up!”)
This was the first year we finally realized that stopping at schools to teach environmental lessons, even if it was in partnership with M’lop Tapang and even if it included pre-tour meetings and pre-tour environmental education classes, was not “sustainable” – nor practical, nor a useful way to spend our time in Cambodia. It was good to make the break from the school visits of previous years and instead focus on the “learning” aspects of our trip rather than the “teaching”.
This was the first trip where we highlighted visits to a group of community based tourism organizations. We visited the homestay and tour program at Banteay Chammar, a newly developing mangrove tour project between Kep and Kampot, and stopped in to learn more about the programs being offered at Bridges Across Borders in Kep. At all three programs we collected feedback on how to tailor the programs being offered to attract more responsible, independent, and adventurous western travelers.
We partnered with Global Agents for Change on this trip and had some of their team (volunteers and board members), along for the ride. It was a pleasure to have the GAFC team with us, to see PEPY and our work in Cambodia through their eyes, and to get their feedback and advice. Global Agents for Change offers rides in the US and Europe and we hope to get out and join them some day…. So should you!

We hope that next year, The PEPY Ride VI will continue to:

Attract adventurous and passionate travelers who are eager to learn about Cambodia and development issues. Thank you PEPY Ride V team for embodying this!
Be led by inspiring trip leaders! Thank you Rithy, Katy, and Lucky for your hard work to make this trip so educational and to get us onto some of the nicest back roads in Cambodia!
Support innovative and “impactful” NGOs, social ventures, and community based tourism projects throughout Cambodia. The trip participants raised over $10,000 for partner projects and we thank the PRV team and their supporters!

Over the coming week, look out for more posts from PEPY Ride V team members about the trip highlights and maybe you will want to join us on The PEPY Ride VI!

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