Cambodiana

I haven't ventured into the Cardamom Mountains of south-west Cambodia as of now. A lack of temples and a lack of time have been the major obstacles to-date. Oh, and I don't like trips where I will be completely knackered in a short space of time, and getting around the interior of the Cardamoms sounds like hard work. There's a couple of projects on-going there at the moment, one at Chi Phat through Wildlife Alliance and another at Thma Bang through Conservation International. I hear that the Chi Phat project is putting on 4-day trips for private sector tour companies and the like in late November and December, so hopefully I will have the chance to find out a lot more, on the ground as it were. Aside from that, the Cardamoms are pretty wild and it's that veil of mystery that will be revealed at Meta House tomorrow night (Thursday 30th) when the debut documentary by Estelle des Dorides, Cambodiana, will take us on a 52-minute trip to the highlands, with Dorides present at the screening for a Q&A session afterwards. The Cardamoms is home to 14 endangered and threatened mammal species including Asian elephant, Indochinese Tiger, Malayan sun bear, pileated gibbon, Irrawaddy and humpback dolphins, and half of Cambodia's bird species. Roof-top start time, 8pm. On Friday at Meta House, there will be a showing of Burma All Inclusive, a 2007 film by Austrian filmmaker Roland Wehap who describes a fictive tourist journey through Burma, which should be interesting.