Cambodia’s innovative Mekong Discovery Trail project, which is encouraging local community sustainable tourism along a delightful stretch of the Mekong River between the Laos border and the colonial town of Kratie, has been accepted into the National Geographic’s ‘Geotourism Challenge 2009 – Power of Place’.

National Geographic defines geotourism as tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place - its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents. Geotourism incorporates the concept of sustainable tourism while allowing for enhancement that protects the character of the locale. Geotourism also adopts a principle from its cousin, ecotourism - that tourism revenue can promote conservation - and extends that principle beyond nature travel to encompass culture and history as well: all distinctive assets of a place.

For further details of the Mekong Discovery and to vote for it visit the Geotourism Challenge’s website at http://geotourism.changemakers.com/en-us/node/21346

To enjoy tours along the Mekong Discovery Trail Project contact: info@asia-adventures.com

Last week Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen presided over the groundbreaking ceremony at Bellus Angkor Resort and City, a US$ 470-million project undertaken by the Korean developer Intercity Group.

The project will be built on a 265-hectare site located 22 kilometres north of Angkor Thom. In addition to a 1,500 room hotel and resort, water park, shopping malls and entertainment centre, the complex will be home to Siem Reap’s fourth international standard golf course. The construction of a forth golf course will strengthen Siem Reap’s claim of being South East Asia’s newest golfing destination.

For excellent golf holidays in Siem Reap contact: info@asia-adventures.com

As the sun rises between the trees, Akira, president of the Cambodian Self Help Demining (CSHD) team, begins his morning by setting a stick of TNT next to a land mine. The mine lies within a 4-hectare minefield his team is clearing in Anlong Veng. As the rest of the team stop work to take cover, Akira, wiping sweat from under his thick protective clothing, helmet and face shield, counts down. A boom rings out, the ground shakes and debris flies into the air as the land mine is destroyed.

“Before, it would only take me a minute to defuse and remove a mine,” Akira says, referring to his former gung-ho method of clearing mines with nothing but a stick and a knife. “I would collect the detonators in my pocket and make a fire at the end of the day to burn explosives from the mines I collected…. When I cleared the old way, I could wear a sarong and sandals. But now we must follow NGO procedures.”

For more than 10 years, Akira was famous throughout Cambodia for his controversial demining methods. Although opposed by government authorities and other demining groups for not following international safety standards, Akira, a former child soldier with the Khmer Rouge, became a local hero, clearing the countryside of more than 50,000 mines, many of which he had once laid.

Earlier this year, with the help of supporters both here and abroad, Akira gained the equipment and training needed to meet international standards and obtained a licence for him and his team to demine, creating the first Cambodian-run demining organisation. “Now we have much support, so there is no more trouble,” Akira said, after relating stories of being arrested for his work and the land mine museum he opened in Siem Reap in 1997 being closed down periodically and its contents confiscated.

“At that time, I liked to demine alone in the jungle or with my wife. I didn’t have the equipment to start an NGO, but I knew how to lay and I knew how to defuse. All kinds of land mines and bombs I know how to make safe, and I have cleared many, many thousands until now.”

BACTAC country director Peter Ferguson, who helped Akira prepare for demining accreditation, said many changes were required. “The way he used to work was to go into the field, find mines, render them safe and remove them, often bringing them back for display at the museum,” he said. “In humanitarian demining, you can’t operate that way. Particularly with land mines, they cannot be moved. You locate them and destroy them in place.”

But after the necessary equipment was donated and training completed, field reports on Akira’s methods were excellent, Ferguson said. Along with his new accreditation has come respect from those who once opposed him. Two years ago, the Cambodian Mine Action Authority (CMAA) certified the contents of Akira’s land mine museum in Siem Reap safe - the first time in the world such a museum has been opened to the public.

With their workday over and dusk approaching, the CSHD team settles into hammocks around a campfire, boiling their jungle soup of wild fruit and animal innards. Akira tells how he lost his entire family in the late ’70s - all but one aunt, a Khmer Rouge solider, who took him in. Unsure of his birth date, Akira estimates he was between 10 and 13 when he became a soldier for the Khmer Rouge, learning about warfare and weaponry. Later, joining the Vietnamese army, Akira says his job was to control the K5 mine belt that stretched along the Thai border, planting new mines and training others to do the same. After the war Akira became passionate about seeing his country free from war and the remnants of war, particularly the land mines he had helped lay.

To visit the Cambodia Land Mine Museum whilst in Siem Reap contact: info@asia-adventures.com

Edited from Phnom Penh Post (May 09)

Revenues from Angkor Wat admission fees have shrunk by 20% in the first quarter, the Apsara Authority reports. This is in line with a 22-percent drop in foreign visitors this year up to the end of March. The number of visitors to Angkor Wat continued to drop by 16 percent in April.

The Apsara Authority’s Department of Angkor Tourism Development showed that the number of tourists who visited Angkor Wat had decreased 13 percent in January, 26 percent in February, 26 percent in March, and 16 percent in April compared with 2008 figures.

For excellent tours of Angkor Wat contact: info@asia-adventures.com

Edited from the Phnom Penh Post (1-6-09)