Khoy Prokrotey can’t assist however assist. A few many years right into a profession in ecotourism in Cambodia, she’s discovered loads of causes to.
Again within the day as a coach working with ecotourism tasks and NGOs, Khoy had the chance to journey round a number of Cambodia. And when she wasn’t working, she’d maintain exploring, typically by bike on in a single day jaunts into the Cambodian jungle. Wherever she went, for work or for enjoyable, she met a number of individuals, however it was the ladies she was most inquisitive about.
‘I’d see the native ladies who’re struggling as a result of their husbands work outdoors the home, however the ladies nonetheless work very exhausting within the fields or farms,’ she recollects. ‘However after they break up or the husband dies, they turn into a single mom they usually wrestle with no job and no cash.’
Particularly in elements of rural Cambodia, divorced or widowed ladies not solely face potential financial challenges if their companion had been the only real revenue earner, in addition they typically face a social stigma as properly.
Serving to not simply native ladies, however guests too
On her travels, Khoy would additionally meet overseas ladies visiting Cambodia from overseas. ‘I’d ask them what they really feel after they journey alone,’ she says. ‘They are saying in some locations they don’t really feel secure at evening.’
‘Then I mentioned, okay, I have to do one thing to assist ladies on either side.’
In 2017 she got here up with the idea of a tuk-tuk enterprise that will make use of native ladies and in addition present a service to travellers, particularly feminine travellers. She began with one tuk-tuk and three drivers. Right this moment her firm Driver Srey has three tuk-tuks and 12 drivers.
In 2024, Intrepid travellers can hop aboard a kind of tuk-tuks for a tour across the Angkor Wat advanced. Travellers can be collected at their resort by certainly one of Khoy’s drivers and head off for a tour, stopping at three temples – Angkor Wat, Bayon and the jungle-covered Ta Prohm – the place the group will hop off and discover with their native chief.
Again on the tuk-tuks, travellers are handed a cool towel and sit again on board for an open-air experience to their subsequent cease.
Intrepid senior product supervisor Dyan Mckie not too long ago obtained an opportunity to do that expertise. Whereas excursions of the advanced are usually achieved by way of minivan, tuk-tuks are an alternative choice, although it’s uncommon to see a lady on the handlebars.
‘Lots of the male tuk-tuk drivers doing the identical route regarded on in delicate shock and shock,’ Dyan recollects. ‘Different ladies who checked tickets on the gates of Angkor had been pleasantly shocked and comfortable to see a feminine driver. Solely you then realise and absolutely admire what these ladies are doing.’
Full velocity forward for Khoy
When Khoy first began her firm, she got down to recruit drivers. ‘I met just a few different ladies who had been bike drivers. I watched them drive to the market and again, and I noticed they’d abilities.’ She’d communicate with them and be taught extra about them, their lives and the way they earn an revenue – in the event that they do.
‘I wish to assist ladies,’ Khoy says. ‘Not solely simply to empower them, however to assist them and their livelihood, too,’ she says. ‘And solo travellers can come right here and I give them care. I attempt to give my crew a plan to handle ladies travellers.’
Outdoors of this Intrepid expertise, most of Driver Srey’s prospects are solo ladies travellers, and plenty of have expressed how massive an element security is for them as they journey (together with some stories of undesirable advances from male drivers prior to now). Khoy will coordinate immediately with travellers to rearrange for certainly one of her drivers to take them out not only for excursions, however for airport, resort and restaurant pickups and drop-offs, too.
‘It will be significant we handle them,’ she says.
Khoy has no plans to hit the brakes. ‘I need my enterprise in all places, not simply Siem Reap,’ she says. ‘I need this step-by-step. I’ll develop this factor larger and empower them.’
Take a experience round Angkor Wat with Driver Srey on Important Cambodia and Actual Cambodia.
