Diving and looking back
Ok so our quiet time on Ko Phangan hasn't really been so, but then why would it be, we have been running around for the last 2 months so why stop now. At least we are now certified divers and apart from a slight panic from Shiv under water and then me nearly not completing the swim test it was a great fun experience learning to dive. The boat/bus/train journies have given me time to look back on our time so far and although rushed as it was it was an amazing experience over here. The most expensive place was suprisingly Cambodia but it was a place that made the greatest impact. Ok Ill apologize for the next bit in advance, but life travelling aint all Rosy but if anyone has time, do read.
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Life there is really tough even as a tourist. There is so much poverty and begging that you do at stages have to just put your head down and say No as you cant help everybody there. There was one cause however as soon as I arrive home we will campaign to help. was an eye opener to what is really going on still in Cambodias life. Sure we had been to the killing fields in Phnom Pen and that was disturbing as was the S21 museum where most of Cambodias intellectuals were brought and tortured before they were killed by Polpot and the Kahmer Rouge. You are inttroduced to the lives that children of that era were taught to "kill people" but infact they didnt see it as killing them at all and they didn't know what they were doing.
So that left us thinking, This only happened a mere few years ago so some Kahmer Rouge are still alive, what are they doing with themselves. So when in Siam Reap and taking a break from looking at ANOTHER temple we went to Aki Ra's museum. He himself was a child soldier for the Kahmer Rouge, Recruited at age 5 was first taught to make cigarette mines, ok you can read up all about him and the museum on the site + Google will throw up many more sights. But seeing first hand how hard it is for him. He reckons his life is now on a par, Lindmines planted 40k+ : Mines de-activated 42k+ and counting. He still gets grief over what he does though and is occasionally put in jail for illegally deactivating mines( He can go to a field, and using his method of finding mines, deactivate 30 mines in a day. The "proper" way is 3 government men go to a field for a day and deactivate max 5 mines between them. At a cost of roughly $300 per mine) His museum is hopefully on the move soon to a site purchased by a canadian mine organisation, but are lacking funds. Oh yeah I forgot to mention in his spare time Aki Ra also fosters child landmine victims and schools them and many other landmine victims.
Ok I dont think I got across the point I was trying to make but basically there are still millions of live mines in Cambodia. Added to that Aki Ra's tough time of trying to help victims and future victims the new centre shall be a vital role for the future as a school/homeand education centre for tourists.
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Ok so back to the positives of travel: Am literally just up, 2pm now, after last nights "World Famous" Hadd Rin full moon party. What a mental night/morning that was. We came down here for a relaxing time but its not really been that. We started our PADI diving course on our first day here, so a few nights of not going out ensued and we are now both qualified "PADI Open Water divers" which was the plan to do here as its so much cheaper, 1/2 the price, than in Australia. Plus we can now just go on adventure fun dives in the Great Barrier Reef instead of having to do the learning down there. Off to Bangkok again tomorrow morning and then to Cairns the following evening.
Talk to you all then. Will email you all our new mobile numbers when we get them this week or so. Still sorry for the lack of picture updates we have nearly 400 images now and cant find a connection able to upload even 4 photos at a time. Also sorry to those who tried to ring me the other night hope the party went well.
Keep in touch
Ger + Siobhain
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Life there is really tough even as a tourist. There is so much poverty and begging that you do at stages have to just put your head down and say No as you cant help everybody there. There was one cause however as soon as I arrive home we will campaign to help. was an eye opener to what is really going on still in Cambodias life. Sure we had been to the killing fields in Phnom Pen and that was disturbing as was the S21 museum where most of Cambodias intellectuals were brought and tortured before they were killed by Polpot and the Kahmer Rouge. You are inttroduced to the lives that children of that era were taught to "kill people" but infact they didnt see it as killing them at all and they didn't know what they were doing.
So that left us thinking, This only happened a mere few years ago so some Kahmer Rouge are still alive, what are they doing with themselves. So when in Siam Reap and taking a break from looking at ANOTHER temple we went to Aki Ra's museum. He himself was a child soldier for the Kahmer Rouge, Recruited at age 5 was first taught to make cigarette mines, ok you can read up all about him and the museum on the site + Google will throw up many more sights. But seeing first hand how hard it is for him. He reckons his life is now on a par, Lindmines planted 40k+ : Mines de-activated 42k+ and counting. He still gets grief over what he does though and is occasionally put in jail for illegally deactivating mines( He can go to a field, and using his method of finding mines, deactivate 30 mines in a day. The "proper" way is 3 government men go to a field for a day and deactivate max 5 mines between them. At a cost of roughly $300 per mine) His museum is hopefully on the move soon to a site purchased by a canadian mine organisation, but are lacking funds. Oh yeah I forgot to mention in his spare time Aki Ra also fosters child landmine victims and schools them and many other landmine victims.
Ok I dont think I got across the point I was trying to make but basically there are still millions of live mines in Cambodia. Added to that Aki Ra's tough time of trying to help victims and future victims the new centre shall be a vital role for the future as a school/homeand education centre for tourists.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok so back to the positives of travel: Am literally just up, 2pm now, after last nights "World Famous" Hadd Rin full moon party. What a mental night/morning that was. We came down here for a relaxing time but its not really been that. We started our PADI diving course on our first day here, so a few nights of not going out ensued and we are now both qualified "PADI Open Water divers" which was the plan to do here as its so much cheaper, 1/2 the price, than in Australia. Plus we can now just go on adventure fun dives in the Great Barrier Reef instead of having to do the learning down there. Off to Bangkok again tomorrow morning and then to Cairns the following evening.
Talk to you all then. Will email you all our new mobile numbers when we get them this week or so. Still sorry for the lack of picture updates we have nearly 400 images now and cant find a connection able to upload even 4 photos at a time. Also sorry to those who tried to ring me the other night hope the party went well.
Keep in touch
Ger + Siobhain
posted by gerire @ 9:00 AM
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