521. Why We Fell in Love With Hosting Retreats in Cambodia

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In this solo episode, Brad Crowell shares his deep-rooted passion for Cambodia, how he and Lesley Logan built a retreat space in Siem Reap, and why they keep returning year after year. From the breathtaking temples of Angkor Wat to their partnership with a local NGO empowering young Cambodians, Brad reflects on creating a place for healing, learning, and connection.

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In this episode you will learn about:

  • Why Cambodia’s history and magic make it a powerful place to host retreats.
  • How Brad turned a childhood spark into a purpose-driven retreat experience.
  • How Lesley and Brad built a retreat center that reflects their mission and values.
  • How supporting local students through Spoons became part of their mission.
  • What makes the guest experience at their Cambodia retreat truly one of a kind.


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Episode Transcript:

Brad Crowell 0:00  

Angkor Thom is really cool because this is a UNESCO heritage site now, and normally, if it's a UNESCO heritage site, they are required to, slowly, over time, rebuild the whatever the structure is to be as if it was the original structure, right? Angkor Thom is one of the few carveouts in the UNESCO portfolio, or, as it were, that they don't have to do that because the trees are 400 years old, 500 years old. They've grown on top of the temple there. And basically, if they were to take the trees off, the temple would fall apart.


Lesley Logan 0:32  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.


Brad Crowell 1:11  

All right. Welcome back Be It babes. This is Brad here. Solo episode today. Hope you like the sound of my voice, because I'm just going to be rambling a little bit about my favorite topic in the entire world, going to Cambodia to spend time with the people there and enjoy some food there and go see the majestic, wonderful temples of Angkor Wat. It is obviously something I'm incredibly passionate about. You've heard me talk about it many, many times in this pod, if you're a listener. If you are brand new, welcome, welcome. We love having you joining us here on the Be It Pod. Cambodia, everybody always asks, hey, why Cambodia? Why? Right? Well, that's definitely my fault. The reality is, my mom bought at a yard sale. She bought, like, 10 years of National Geographic magazines for, I don't know, well, I don't know, I have no idea, I was like 10 years old, or 12 years old or something. Anyway, I opened up the very first one I remember, because I'm sure I looked at a lot, but the one I remember more than any other was opening up this, like, entire spread of Angkor Wat, right? And I didn't even know how to pronounce it at the time. I was a really young kid. But what I can tell you is I was way into dinosaurs, The Jungle Book and Transformers as a child, and when I saw this 10-page spread, or the spread of Angkor Wat in Nat Geo, this was like the Jungle Book in real life to me, and I was so excited about this, the curiosity that it inspired in me literally stayed with me until Lesley asked me, like, I don't know, 20 plus years later, hey, where do we want to go for our honeymoon? And my response instantly was, we're going to Cambodia.


Brad Crowell 3:05  

You know, and she's like, um, really, we're going to Cambodia. Why would we do that? Can we also go to Thailand? Can we also go to Japan? And I was like, of course, let's do those other things, too. But we have to go to Cambodia. I have to see Angkor Wat. I have to see the temples and the jungle temples. And you know, since then, I've been inspired a number of other times. I'm sure you're all aware that Angelina Jolie's version of Tomb Raider was actually filmed at the temples. It was filmed at Ta Prohm temple. That's, like, a really cool temple. It's actually really close to Angkor Wat. It's like, I don't know, 10 minutes away or 15 minutes away from Angkor, and so we have had a chance to go see that one. We saw the Angkor. We saw a temple called Bayon Temple, which actually they considered the, you know, at the time, because what's so cool about the history of Cambodia was a massive empire, is called the Khmer empire, K-H-M-E-R, Khmer Empire, and it covered all of Vietnam up into Lao, Laos, you know, Lao over into Thailand. It's very influenced by India, very influenced by the Thai, and then obviously, what was considered Cambodia today. So it was this massive, massive place. And Angkor was in the middle, and there's a city there, and the city is like fortified, there's a moat around the whole thing. It's this huge city, and in the very center of that city is Bayon Temple. And so they actually consider Bayon temple the center of the universe. They consider the center tower all the way up at the top to be like this pinnacle place that had a spiritual meaning. And the amount of wonder that Angkor inspires in me keeps me going back. 


Brad Crowell 4:42  

When Lesley and I first went in 2016, we realized when we got home we loved Thailand, we loved Japan, but there was something magical about Cambodia that made us go, how do we go back? How do we go back? And that was the beginning of trying to figure that out. We try to figure out, how do we go? What do we need to do to get back there? Initially, we were like, hey, let's ask all of our friends and they'll come with us. This is gonna be super cool. And they were like, yeah, we're interested. But it never came to fruition, right? It was like, oh, yeah, maybe, we're not sure. Couldn't get anybody to actually commit. Lesley went back to her clients and said, is this ever been on anybody's bucket list going to Angkor? We are thinking about hosting a retreat there. And literally, like a dozen of her clients were like, yes, we're in, absolutely, let's do it. And we figured out a window of time that would work for everyone, and we gave ourselves roughly a year to put it all together, because we didn't know anybody. We had one contact there, and that was our tour guide. And so he was super generous. He was just a really helpful connector. And he helped guide us through figuring out, like, who should we talk to for hosting the retreat? And, you know, just all the things, any kind of question. And it was just lovely to have him. So a big shout out to Stephane De Greef and a big thank you to him. Eventually, when he decided to leave Cambodia and move over to Panama and then wherever he's at now, he contacted me and said, hey, man, I'm leaving, but let me introduce you to everybody that I know. And he did. He opened his Rolodex and just introduced us to all these different people there. And it was incredible. 


Brad Crowell 6:16  

So we had the chance to go back in 2017 for our very first trip with Lesley's clients, and we rented a yoga shala. And the shala was really, really awesome. The people were really lovely. And so we decided to rent it again, and we run another group, and we rented a third time, and the third time, the experience just didn't work. It wasn't what we wanted. And it was actually frustrating, because when Lesley and I turned to ourselves and we were like, hey, maybe we should go get a hotel from our own retreat, we were like, yeah, we can't do this anymore. We got to find a better solution. And that's when we decided to go get our own place, right? And so now we'd been there four times at this point, and we just had a bunch of people that we knew. We reached out to them and said, hey, we're looking for a spot. How do we do this? And they helped connect the dots and help us get going. And basically it turned into this hunt for the right spot, the right place for us to take over and turn into ours. And in 2018 that happened, and it was so exciting. I remember flying back, it was really quick too, like, we got this message from our real estate person. They were like, hey, I think I actually found the right spot. And they gave us all these reasons why, and they really understood our mission and our vision. They really understood what we were trying to do. And they said, we actually like the people that you would be working with to do this, because we're not Cambodian. We can't actually own the land. We're not allowed. We're not a citizen, so we have to have a relationship with people who do own the land there, and they're literally our land lord, and we pay them as if it's like a lease, but we own all the things on it. We own a business there. We have a team there, all that stuff. And so he said, I actually think these people are going to be amazing, and they encourage people coming to visit Cambodia, and they care about it, and they're passionate about it, and so they're right. It was amazing. We met them. They were incredibly gracious and lovely, and we've had, at this point, many, many, many years of building a relationship with them. They're just awesome people, and we absolutely lucked out in that regard. And what we did is we took over this property that has a 12 bedroom apartment complex on it, and allowed us to begin to have our own place to bring you know, people from all around the world to come visit and have a safe, secure, clean, fun place. It's also quiet. We're right off the beaten path. We're like 10 minutes walk from the chaos of Pub Street and wow, like all the loud, but we're far enough away that you don't hear it. We're close enough to walk, but far enough away that it doesn't actually impact you. So it's so awesome. From the place we're like, maybe, oh, I don't know, 15 minutes drive to the Temple of Angkor Wat, which is the largest religious structure in the world. It is still functioning today. They absolutely use it for religious ceremonies and stuff. There's a mix of Hinduism and Buddhism in the way that, it's primarily Buddhist today. You know, you can still find other religions there. There's some Christianity, there's some Muslim faiths there. Primarily it's Buddhist, but the history of the country is a mash up of Hinduism and Buddhism because of war, right? It would be like invaded and then, you know, taken over and taken back and back and forth and all this stuff. And so consequently, there's actually a lot of history that was destroyed by the invading army. They'd come in and break all the statues, and then, you know, the other they build theirs. And then these guys would come back, and it would go back and forth over the centuries that that kind of thing happened. And what's so amazing is all of that is still there. It is available to be seen. It is just the most mind-bending thing when you get there and you're like, this is a thousand years old. This statue that I'm looking at here, they carved this. How did they do this? How did they move the stone? How did they even get this here? Like, how did they think this stuff up? Is it is so mind-blowing to me, because it's exactly in line with the stars and meridian lines and longitude and latitude, the amount of science and thought and understanding of architecture and structural integrity and the building materials and the process of doing it, it is so incredibly thought through and advanced. And then the art itself, the carvings, the planning, how could they have thousands of meters of wall? And it's not a repeat carving anywhere in the entire thing. It's all unique. Every single person in that that's carved into the wall is like, different from the person next to it. You know, it's amazing. It's just incredible. And they spent, I don't know, I think it was a couple decades to build Angkor Wat, like 30 plus years or something. But every time I go, I see something new. Every single time I go, I see something new. 


Brad Crowell 10:43  

And so when we go, what we love to do is take our guests through the temples in a way that you would not normally go if you were to just show up and hire a typical tour guide, tuk guide kind of a thing. You'll see the big three, you know, you'll go to the city of Angkor Thom. You'll actually go to Angkor Wat, of course, which is the temple itself. You'll go to Bayon Temple, usually, and maybe one other place. So whatever one they'll probably take you to the jungle temple Ta Prohm, like I was saying that Angelina Jolie filmed at because that's a really mysterious temple as well, with this epic trees that have grown over top of the temple. In fact, Angkor Thom is really cool because this is a UNESCO heritage site now. And normally, if it's a UNESCO heritage site, they are required to, slowly, over time, rebuild the whatever the structure is to be as if it was the original structure, right? Angkor Thom is one of the few carve-outs in the UNESCO portfolio, as it were, that they don't have to do that, because the trees are 400 years old, 500 years old, they've grown on top of the temple there. And basically, if they were to take the trees off, the temple would fall apart. And so they got this exception to keep the everything as it is right now. And that makes it even more cool. I mean, it's just, it's so amazing. So when everybody arrives on Sunday night, we we just hang out. We do like class, we get some food, we usually go get a massage, and then the next morning, we get up and we have class, and then we have the morning off, because after lunch, we all hop on our tour bus and we go see a series of temples. We go to the south gate at Angkor Thom, we go see a pagoda. A pagoda is like a place of worship for monks today, it's kind of like a church, but it's usually open air, open-walled, right? So it's just like a covered building, generally. Sometimes they're, they've got walls and everything, too. But these pagodas that are inside of Angkor Thom are open-aired. And so we go see this pagoda, and there's like monks actually practicing there. And it's really neat to see the community still lives there, and they still do life there, right? So, and then we go in to Bayon Temple, and we go, from there, we might be able to go up to see Angkor or the elephant terrace, which is this like place where the king today still will go up to Angkor and you know, he will have a big ceremony once a year there. The royal family goes there. And then from there, we'll go to the north gate, and we'll see the different gates that they have. And they're all unique. They're all, you know, the similar concept, but they're all unique. And of course, the vegetation, the trees are different, the views are different, all that. Then we'll go out the east gate, and we'll go over and see Ta Prohm, right? Along the way, we'll stop at another place, Chau Say Tevoda, which is a smaller temple that was like, considered a library. There were twin temples there. So there's one on one side of the road, one on the other, the one is in way better shape than the the other side. So we always go to the one that actually is, like in repair. You know, maybe we walk through the jungle a little bit there. And, you know, there's, like, usually there's monkeys, which are not your friend, but they're usually there, too. We get a chance to go through and peek into the past. That is just mind-blowing. And my favorite part of going to Cambodia, well, one of my favorite parts, to be honest, because I really can't pick, is being able to go explore these temples. And there's just something that is so otherworldly about it, because you don't see this in the United States, right? You don't find this stuff, probably not even up in Canada. You might see something comparable in Europe, but it's different, right? The massive cathedrals in Europe could be like, 1000 years old too, but it's not the same as it being like, overtaken by the jungle and then carved out after they re-, quote-unquote, rediscovered it in the, you know, 1860s basically, a French guy discovered it in the 1860s again and brought it back to light in western civilization. And then the French actually occupied Cambodia for like, 100 years. And it wasn't until 1960s that Cambodia became Cambodia. Before that, it was an occupied territory of from the French, and it got its independence in the 60s. 


Brad Crowell 14:45  

The second thing that is just amazing is the food. In Cambodia, they don't cook with milk or dairy products. There's no cheese. It's not standard. They also are generally light on the sauces, right? It's not like Thai food. Where everything has its own sauce, and it's half sauce and half whatever the dish is. It's different than that. They make a lot of curries, like I mentioned, it is, you know, a lot of influence from India and Thailand. There are a lot of noodle dishes, but there's a lot of rice dishes, and it's generally really clean eating, right? So if it's a rice dish, it's rice with a small side salad and then a little bit of prepared meat. Their quote-unquote sauce might be like salt and pepper mix, right? It's not sloshed with all this stuff. And so it's really great food. And it just, it's clean, easy, it's always farm to table, because they don't really have the big processing system that we do in the United States. So everything just tastes so good. I love it. And what we do, we get to work with, this is super special, when we moved there, there was this organization, it's an NGO, or a non-government organization that was started by somebody in the United States. They went there and they had a passion for Cambodia, and they said, hey, we could help. We could affect change by creating, effectively, a vo-tech school, right? So what they did is they would raise money, and then they would go into the countryside, and they would sponsor these kids who were really poor, who could not afford to educate themselves. And they said, hey, if you want to, we will give you a full ride, a full scholarship to our school. You'll stay on campus. You'll learn how to work in the service industry. So we'll teach you how to be a chef. We'll teach you how to be a pastry chef. We'll teach you how to be a barista or a server or a bartender or a manager or whatever. And so it's all surrounding the service industry. And then after the end of the program, after these kids go through the program, which I don't remember how long, it could be a couple years, because they also have, like, regular classes, and there's a dormitory and all this stuff. When they graduate, they actually will help them get a job placement. So they might move down to the big city in Phnom Penh and they go to a fancy hotel there, or maybe they stay relatively local in Siem Reap or maybe they go abroad, I don't know, but the school helps them get placed for a job. And this organization is called Spoons. Well, it's called Spoons today. I can't remember what it was called prior, because unfortunately, during COVID, all the money dried up and all the support dried up, and it wasn't available for them. And unfortunately, the American support basically said, hey, we got to close the doors. We don't have any way to keep this going. And the locals, the team that they have built, the Cambodians, some of them were graduates themselves, then helping to run the school, said, hey, this is an amazing thing that's really helping people here. We want to keep this going. And so they went locally, and they found a couple of really generous donors to effectively step in on the financial side to help support the school. And they were able to keep the doors open. And Lesley and I were there in like 2020 and things were still operating like normal when we were there in March of 2020 but then we were gone for two years. We weren't back until 2022 so when we finally got back in 2022 we went over there and we were talking to them, and they said, somehow we made it through. It's been crazy, but we were able to keep the doors open. And this year, we are sponsoring 20 students. This is the first time that we've ever operated as a company, as an organization, without any outside support. It's all like done locally. It's now run by and owned by Cambodians. They call themselves the Khmer people, run by khmer, and they were really proud of that, because they were able to keep this institution that had been put into place operating. And then the next year they had like 50 students. And then this past year, we were there, you know, we were just there in February of 2025, now, and they have like 78 students. And we're so pleased to be able to work with them, because we have them deliver our meals during the week. And then on the final day of the trip, we actually all go over to the restaurant, to Spoons, and they serve us. The students are working at the restaurant. So, you know, there's the head chef is a graduate, or the manager is a graduate, and they're making sure the wheels stay on the bus, but the barista, the servers, the bussers, all the food prep, all that stuff, is done by the students themselves. And it gives us so much joy to be able to support that organization. And the food they make is amazing. It's so good. 


Brad Crowell 19:03  

We want to invite you to come join us in Cambodia on a trip and experience these things for yourself and join us so that we can make sure that you really do have an incredible time. Come stay at our house. It's so cool. Go to crowsnestretreats.com. We're taking another group in October of 2025, we're taking another group in October of 2026. In '26 we're only taking one group, so make sure that you check it out. Reach out to us and ask any question. I'm happy to answer them all. I love talking about this. I would love to get on the phone with you. It'd be amazing. So thank you so much for listening to me share my enthusiasm about this unbelievable place on our planet. And we hope you come join us. Bye for now.


Lesley Logan 19:41  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.


Brad Crowell 20:24  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.


Lesley Logan 20:29  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.


Brad Crowell 20:33  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.


Lesley Logan 20:40  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.


Brad Crowell 20:44  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.



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