WAKE UP AND SMELL THE PEPPER
If you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share it
Black pepper, Kampot pepper corns from the South of Cambodia, the kind you grind into your Chicken Noodle Soup. Kampot pepper turns your head around and makes you realize that, though all pepper is created equal, some peppercorns are more equal than others and destined to rock and roll. I buy its distilled essence and burn it like incense. Beats patchouli I’ll say that. I burn it nightly now cuz it puts me in a mind to go back. And so I am.
Departure December 14 on an airline I can’t pronounce with just one stopover in a city I’ve never heard of which 4 million souls likely call home and whip out, every couple weeks, soccer jerseys and scarves and noise-makers to rile the arch rivals 10 miles away and 3.5 million strong.
The Kingdom of Cambodia kind of (of all the countries in the region) spares you that though, which is one of the chief reasons I Love it. Even Phnom Penh goes slow; it’s chaos, but slow chaos – more like an inexpert promenade; a hot glacier that groans like 10,000 scooters running out of gas and tooting horns with a loose wire. (more…)
IT AIN’T ALL BAD!!!
If you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share it
Despite the landgrabs and resource poaching my Cambodian friends are moving ahead! Way fewer landmine causalties, for instance, WAY fewer. Way better healthcare too. Way less war, which means something too.
A huge amount of super-dangerous ground has been successfully cleared by the dangerous and meritorious efforts of the various international and home-grown mine clearing orgs. Injuries due to any kind of UXO is drastically lowered, also, it must be enforced, due to efforts by many parties to educate villagers on what and what not to do when they encounter explosive devices. Shit is still out there and, so, shit still happens… so give a warm welcome to the ‘Hero Rat’. CMAC (the Cambodian Mine Action Center) has been working with a Belgian NGO training African Giant Pouched Rats at the subtle task of demining. We all know how smart they are and they are ‘very readily trained to food reward’. I would somehow also rather blow a rat, say, than a nice Alsatian.
40 people died in Cambodia in 2012 due to landmine and other UXO explosions. A big hungry well-trained Giant Pouched Rat could have saved many of them. You Go!
64,202 people have been killed or maimed by landmines in Cambodia alone since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in ’79.
Plenty of them are still kickin’ tho’ with a leg blown off. I’m going to go help them on December 14th . Just me and my bike.
CARGO BIKES CAN SAVE THE PLANET!!!
If you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share it
THIS STORIED AND STRONG KONA UTE IS GOING BACK FOR HER 3RD
VISIT
TO CAMBODIA, AND THIS TIME LAOS AND NORTH SRI LANKA TO CARRY HUNDREDS OF POUNDS OF HAND-MADE ACRYLIC MIRRORS TO LANDMINE VICTIMS IN THESE REMOTE AND BOMBED-OUT REGIONS.
THEY ARE USED IN ‘MIRROR THERAPY’ TREATING AMPUTEES FOR PHANTOM LIMB PAIN.
KONA BIKES, DIZZY CYCLES AND ICEBREAKER MERINO ARE GIVING GEAR TO HELP THIS PRECIOUS MISSION ON.
DO YOUR BIT BY DONATING FUNDS TO ‘ME AND MY MIRROR’, A ONE-MAN PROJECT BY A VANCOUVERITE AND AN AMP! EVERY BIT HELPS! CLICK THE ‘DONATE’ BUTTON ON THE meandmymirror.org website
PEACE!
Social Media
