Sophea Son

A month before our trip to SR, I've been communicating via calls and emails with Horn Hong, our tuktuk driver during our "5 Countries" visit. Unfortunately, he had to cancel on us at the last minute because of a family emergency he had to attend to in the province. We were so disappointed as it was hard to find magic again with the "right" tuktuk driver.

Horn did arrange for us to have a friend of his to be our tuktuk driver. We were picked up from the airport by his friend, but unfortunately he didn't know how to speak English.


















The tuktuk is set up in a way that the driver is seated in front of you. So this implies that all the air that passes through your driver will naturally go to you! This includes all the dust, dirt, and SMELL. This was another unfortunate issue with Horn's friend. Know what I mean? ;)



So the lucky tuktuk driver this time was....


SOPHEA SON!!!


















He was recommended by our hotel receptionist. Sophea was formerly a tour guide, as well as a MONK. He was in the monastery for six years, but left after being told by a "sorcerer" that he will die if he continues to be a monk. . . So he did leave. At times there was something Harry Potter-ish with his stories...

The good side with changing his profession was that he was able to start a family and purchase a lot with a wooden house for $4000. Guess being a tuktuk driver gave him more benefits time- and money-wise.

He is only 37 years old. But he looks older... Maybe it was the fasting during his monk days and sun exposure.

Sophea gave us short stories about the temples on each of our stops. We've been telling him this wasn't our first time in SR, but still he wanted to share what he knew about the temples. There wasn't a dull moment with Sophea, as he always had insights about things. He asked questions about our country and culture... As well as FARMING in the Philippines. We later on found out that he actually took up Agriculture in college, despite wanting to study Literature.



















On our way back from one of the temples, Sophea stopped to buy some palm candy.















































He insisted that we try some. This reminds us of some candy we have in the province of Pangasinan, Philippines. Same taste, but ours in the Philippines is more brownish in color.

















On our last day of touring the temples, Sophea suddenly stopped (AGAIN!) at a bookstore in town. He purchased a notebook which he later on filled up with English words and phrases that he wanted us to translate to Filipino/Tagalog. It was quite annoying to be given such a task while on vacation, but what the heck... We filled it up anyway!


















He pretty much filled up the entire notebook and these are just a number of the pages he filled up. Kindness got the best of D, so he later on added more phrases which he thought would be useful for Sophea. We were also quite touched by his thirst for learning our language, so we gave it some time.









































































































Will be sending him an English-Tagalog/Tagalog-English Dictionary when we get home. :)