Am I mad?

I think the heat and humidity is getting to me. I've just put my name down for a more than challenging cycling tour through the protected forest of northeast Mondulkiri province next month! Am I mad or what? I haven't ridden a bike seriously since I was a teenager. The tour will be 4 days of about 50kms riding each day, which doesn't sound so bad until you realise that its in one of the most remote places in Cambodia. Alongside the Vietnam border, the Srepok Wilderness Area, operated by the environmental organisation WWF, is hours from anywhere and target villages on the itinerary like Trapeang Thmier, Merouch, O'Rovei and Nam Ram don't even appear on the new Total Atlas of the country! It's part of a plan to develop ecotourism as a way of supporting the communities in that area, introducing alternative livelihoods and assisting conservation projects - but whether I should be putting myself through all this is another discussion altogether. It'll be incredibly hot, even in the cooler climes of Mondulkiri, and the route is untried but its a great opportunity to see a part of Cambodia that I've not yet visited, so I'll just shut up and get on with it. Wish me luck, especially my poor arse.

This Saturday evening at 7pm will see the screening at Meta House of one of the John Pilger films that did so much to raise a storm of protest over Cambodia in the UK when it was shown in late 1990. Cambodia: The Betrayal was Pilger's examination of the continued secret support given by Western governments to the Khmer Rouge and their allies. It won an international Emmy Award for Best Documentary and Pilger himself received the Richard Dimbleby Award for factual reporting at the 1990 BAFTA Awards. At the time, it got me writing furiously to the Prime Minister, the Labour party spokesman, my MP, literally everyone and their dog to show my disgust for the actions of my own government and even the SAS in backing the Khmer Rouge and allowing such a genocidal group to remain seated at the United Nations. Read a review of the film by Helen Jarvis, the current Publicity Chief of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal here.

Also coming to Meta House very soon will be an exhibition by Japanese artist and photographer Yoko Toda of photographs he took in Cambodia in 1965 and 1966 of a country at peace. Entitled Silence Remained, the exhibition will be officially inaugurated on March 4 and goes on until the March 14. Read more here. The artist himself says; "The beauty and the truth of this sacred place prior to the nightmare of destruction breathe their eternal light and shadow in these images" - make sure you see the exhibition.