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A Birthday with a Positive Impact
What do you give someone for her birthday when her mission is to make travel a force for good?
That was the question we faced when Esther van Ruth, founder of Positive Impact Tourism, told us she would be in Siem Reap on her birthday, 29 August.
Esther had arrived in Cambodia a week before joining our Dutch 500 Agents FAM Trip and asked us whether we could organise something special for her birthday. Not simply a nice excursion. Not a luxury lunch or a day at the spa. She wanted a day that reflected what she believes in.
And that made us think.
Making Travel Mean Something
Esther founded Positive Impact Tourism with the idea that travel can—and should—create benefits for the places and people we visit. Their Positive Impact Experiences combine discovering a destination with hands-on activities and choices that contribute directly to local communities and the environment.
That philosophy is very close to our own way of thinking at Cambodian Travel Partner. The difficult part wasn’t finding something meaningful to do. It was choosing.
Over the years, we have built relationships with many local people, families, schools and projects in Cambodia. We wanted Esther’s birthday to connect several of those worlds and show how one day of travel can touch many different lives.
So we created a birthday without balloons and presents.
Well… almost without presents.
First Stop: The Local Market
The day started early in a small village just outside Siem Reap with Chef Sophos.
Sophos spent more than 13 years working in professional kitchens and international hotels, including Park Hyatt Siem Reap, before returning to a more personal way of sharing Cambodian food from his family home in the countryside. His experiences connect Khmer cooking with local ingredients, village life and community.
But Esther wasn’t there just to take a cooking class.
Early in the morning, she joined Sophos at a local countryside market to buy ingredients from local vendors. Then it was time to start cooking. And not for two people. They had 75 hungry children waiting for lunch.
Cooking for 75 Children
Together they prepared enormous pots of Cambodian curry, which were loaded up together with bread and taken to the Sunshine School. The school, run by Ms. Han, provides supplementary education to more than 200 local children, including English, computer, music and dance classes. It depends on donations to continue its work.
Cambodian Travel Partner and Cambodiajeep have supported the school since its beginning in 2021, so it was especially meaningful for us to make it part of Esther’s day.
Soon, 75 children were sitting together enjoying the curry that Esther and Sophos had spent the morning preparing. It wasn’t lunch for a community from a distance. Esther had visited the market, helped source the ingredients, cooked the food and then shared the result with the children.
And that is perhaps what positive-impact travel should feel like.
Small Heroes, Enormous Impact
The afternoon brought a completely different experience.
Esther visited the APOPO Visitor Center in Siem Reap to discover how African giant pouched rats—better known as HeroRATs—are trained to detect landmines and other explosives. It may sound unusual until you understand the impact of their work.
APOPO has worked with the Cambodian Mine Action Center in Cambodia since 2014, using detection animals alongside deminers and other methods to help return contaminated land safely to communities. At the Siem Reap visitor centre, visitors can learn how the rats are trained and see a demonstration of their detection abilities.
For someone interested in tourism that contributes rather than simply observes, it was another fascinating example of how visiting a project can help travellers understand a much bigger Cambodian story.
We Didn’t Forget the Birthday Cake
Of course, we couldn’t make the entire day serious.
Back at the Cambodian Travel Partner office, our team was waiting. There was a birthday cake, plenty of smiles and, whether Esther was prepared for it or not, the Cambodian Travel Partner team singing Happy Birthday. After all, positive impact or not, a birthday still needs cake.
But the day wasn’t over yet.
Dinner for Some Very Special Guests
As evening approached, Esther headed out again—this time carrying food for guests who certainly hadn’t made a reservation.
Dogs. Lots of dogs.
Ms. Kong Sovatana and her husband do something we deeply admire. Every day, twice a day, they feed stray dogs living around local pagodas. There is no big tourist attraction here. No polished visitor centre. Just two people who decided that these animals deserve to be cared for. Esther loves animals, so we knew this had to be part of her birthday. Together with Ms. Sovatana, she visited several pagodas around Siem Reap, where dozens of dogs were waiting. Bowls were filled, tails started wagging and another very different side of Siem Reap became part of Esther’s story.
Sometimes positive impact starts with something remarkably simple:
Seeing a need—and deciding to help.
Capturing the Story
Esther had one more request before her special day. She asked whether a Cambodian content creator, photographer, videographer, guide and translator could accompany her. We knew exactly who to ask.
Mr. Samnang, founder of Cambodia Travel Immersion, joined Esther throughout the day and documented the experience through his photography.
We would like to give him a special thank-you for not simply taking beautiful photographs, but for helping Esther connect with the people she met along the way. And looking back at his images, we think they tell the story better than words ever could.
A Birthday to Remember
One birthday.
A local market.
A Cambodian chef.
Seventy-five children sharing lunch.
HeroRATs helping make Cambodia safer.
A birthday cake with our team.
And an evening feeding stray dogs at local pagodas.
It wasn’t the easiest birthday programme we have ever organised. But perhaps that was exactly the point.
We didn’t want to give Esther a collection of tourist attractions. We wanted to create a day around the things she believes in: local people, meaningful encounters, giving something back and leaving a positive impact behind.
And judging by the smile on her face, we think this is one birthday she won’t forget.
What Would Your Special Day Look Like?
You don’t have to wait for your birthday.
Perhaps there is something you have always wanted to experience in Cambodia. Maybe you would like to spend time with a local family, cook for a community, support a project, discover a side of Cambodia most visitors never see—or perhaps you have an idea we haven’t even thought of yet.
Tell us what matters to you.
At Cambodian Travel Partner, some of our favourite journeys start not with an itinerary, but with a simple question:
“What would you really like to do?”