Hi :)
Thanks so much for taking the time to write a review. It’s so helpful for us, of course getting lovely feedback is wonderful but it’s also hugely helpful to hear points we can improve on.
Thank you for your kind compliments regarding the staff in our UK office. We’re all incredibly passionate about what we do and strive to ensure that you have the best experience possible while travelling with us.
You are absolutely right, there are sometimes other volunteers whom you might encounter who are helping out at some of the projects and they are paying a lower price. The reason for this is that they have chosen to travel to Cambodia alone and volunteer independently. They have chosen to travel without the support of an organisation such as us to put things in place and to ensure your safety and well-being while you’re away.
You mention that your in-country guides Yuth and Sovann were “incredible, brilliant and deserving of great praise” – I couldn’t agree more, they’re fantastic at what they do and this is part of the very service that you are paying for when you book a program with us. The people you met who we’re volunteering independently overseas did not have anyone like Sovann and Yuth to guide them, translate for them, transport them around the country etc and as you know our UK team are on call 24hours a day in case you have a problem – the safety and backup we provide is something we’re very proud of. We also send regular updates to your parents to ensure they know you’re ok.
Our Cambodia Program works out at around £63 per day and when you consider that this covers the support mentioned above from both our team in Cambodia and in the UK, accommodation, 3 meals per day, project materials needed to carry out your volunteer activities, transport to and from the volunteer site each day, transport between the project locations all over the country, airport transfers and clean drinking water, I think it is priced quite fairly. Another added service we provide is to put together a team so that you travel with other like-minded volunteers the same age and this takes time and a lot of effort on our part in terms marketing. I’m really pleased you said you had a great time with the others you travelled with.
The accommodation in which you lived in Siem Reap was a house that we rented so that you guys had your own space rather than being in a hostel, the office downstairs is made up of our in-country team who are looking after you, we thought it beneficial to have them on site in case you need anything and it is made clear in the placement guidelines from the beginning that aircon is not provided but fans are instead.
I’m sorry that you feel we recommended the wrong amount of spending money. This for us is the hardest recommendation to make as everyone is different and has different spending habits. Realistically you could spend very little in Cambodia since meals, drinking water and volunteer activities are included but some people will spend more - we try to balance this and make the amount we recommend as realistic as possible but it’s hard for us to always get this right.
Thank you for your comments regarding the food, these are not comments I have heard before and I will certainly follow up with our in-country staff to ensure that all safety and hygiene procedures are being followed to the letter. I agree this is very important.I’m pleased that overall you had a great time in Cambodia and I hope that my response is slightly helpful in terms of understanding some of the things we do behind the scenes.
Thanks so much for Leaping with us and for taking the time to write a review ☺
