Victoria Angkor's Green Day

I took these photos for a small news story for AsiaLIFE magazine in late Sept. Victoria Angkor is part of a chain of hotels under the French-owned Victoria group of hotels. Every year for the past 6 years, the hotel chain has been holding a "Green Day" to encourage staff and community to be more aware of the environment. It was the 3rd time the green day was held in Siem Reap. About 100 staff members or half the hotel's employees spent one Saturday morning cleaning the grounds at Bayon temple. The hotel organises the event during this time because it is low season so the hotel can operate on half its staff for the morning. Guests are also encouraged to join in but I didn't see any that day.

The funny thing was the Apsara Authority which manages the grounds of the Angkor temples had actually cleaned the place up before we arrived, so there wasn't much to clean. Still, I think it was a good team-building exercise and staff enjoyed themselves.
The procession following the antique cars owned by the hotel.
I was in a van driven by Victoria Angkor's resident manager Vorana Na Champassak (a very handsome French-Laotian) and along the way we were slowed down by an elephant!

The hotel employs such a wide mix of nationalities. I met a Burmese staff member and pictured below is Jam and Mehran, the extremely friendly sales and HR managers respectively. Jam's father is from Dubai and her mom is Filipino while Mehran is a Malaysian Chindian (Indian-Chinese) and speaks brilliant Cantonese. We got on like a house on fire.