Traveling With A Reason

Wandering around trying to save some animals and trees along the way 🌱🐾

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Found this quote while travelling written on a hostel wall It’s very simple and very true.

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Vietnam hostel walls make for good life lessons

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Angkor Wat

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Momma and babies

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Pods into the big blue

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CAMBODIA MARINE CONSERVATION & DIVING EXPERIENCE

The first week diving we were working on completing our PADI open water.

The reason why we were diving off this island in the first place is to rebuild their reefs that have been destroyed. Large fishing boats would coast through these waters and dynamite bomb the reef, leaving a wake of destruction in their path. Once a reef has been dynamite bombed all the aquatic life, including all the fish and coral species, dies. With no coral and no aquatic life these reefs became brown, dull, and dead. Along with the devastation of loosing a beautiful reef, comes the realization that this village along the coast no longer has a fish supply.  

This is the main reason I came on this trip, to rebuild these beautiful waters.

The second week of diving we worked on the pods. The pods consist of metal rods that are shaped like a dome. The purpose for them is to give coral a foundation to grow on. Once the coral is given a starting point to grow it easily reproduces and flourishes. We sanded the pods as they were full of rust. Next we painted epoxy all over the pods which is a substance that resists rust growth and promotes coral growth.

Along with the pods we needed a anchor of some sort to attach the pods to the bottom of the ocean floor. The main factor in creating these weights is it must be cheap. We used sand, a bag of cement, and some water from the creek to create cement. Once our cement mixture was made we poured it into holes we had dug in the ground. We let these sit and harden. Within 2 days we had made 32 weights to anchor our pods.

The fun part was next, our group took 8 pods on the boat along with 32 weights. We threw these into the ocean where the artificial reef was being implemented. This day the current was extremely strong. It was scary descending because if you let go of the rope you’d end up 200m out to sea. Once we got to the bottom we grabbed the weights and walked along the ocean floor with them. If not for having these weights to keep us in one place I would have been taken with the current. We set the pods down next to older pods and anchored them into the sand with the weights. It was interesting to do work underwater because you use oxygen so much quicker due to heavy breathing therefore we weren’t able to stay under as long.

While I was down there I was able to see other pods that were established about 6 months ago. It was working, the pods were covered in coral and a few fish species were seen hanging around!

After we ascended we jumped back into the boat. This was by far my favourite day of diving. Along with seeing aquatic life I felt such a great feeling of accomplishment. Knowing I was a small piece in the effort to rebuild such beautiful tropical reefs was worth all the hard work. This project provides a home to so many tropical fish and aquatic life. I am so lucky I was able to be a part of it. I would like to thank reach-out and Kylie for their interest in such a project. I find such a feeling of relief and optimism knowing that there are other people who also seek to fix and reverse the destruction we have caused on the environment. I plan on returning one day to see the progress that has been made on this beautiful human-implemented reef. Till then, later days!!

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weights to anchour down the pods

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Elephant sanctuary & Elephant tourism in SE Asia

Siem Reap (traveller info):

For the last half of my project I worked at a elephant and monkey sanctuary. I arrived in Siem Reap which is north and central from where I previously was in Cambodia. For anyone traveling to Cambodia I highly recommend checking out Siem Reap. Its a little town thats vibrant with colour and culture. There are night markets lining the street and if you look up from when on the street there are lanterns of all colours hovering over the city. Its really beautiful. Not to mention you can go shopping, eat food, get a pedicure and watch a lady boy show all within 5 steps away.

Elephant Sanctuary (my sanctuary experience):

After one night in Siem Reap we headed to the sanctuary. The sanctuary is called Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary, which makes a lot of sense… It is part of the Save Elephant Organization. When we got off the bus and stepped out to where we would be working the next week it was like walking into a little tropical rainforest haven. There was no garbage lining the walkways and butterflies would commonly follow your path as you walked along. There were many gardens which filled the space within the sanctuary which are all part of the initiative to create a self sustaining sanctuary.

There are two elephants at the sanctuary. Arun Rai (first picture) is a female who is so lovely and calm. She is 60% blind due to her previous Mahout (a term for a elephant caretaker) who would stab her in the eyes into submission. She was used in the logging industry and in order to get the Arun Rai to do as she was told the Mahouts are trained to perform a beating which is meant to take away a elephants feeling of independence. This is also known as “breaking the spirit.” They are beaten until very sick and ill and when the mahouts nurse them back to health the elephants feel as though they are indebted to the mahout and reliant on them for survival. Its sickening to me how someone can treat such a gentle and innocent animal this way. I truly believe if you have the cruelty in you to torture a animal then you are also capable of hurting humans in the same way. For this reason I think animal abuse should be taken as seriously as human abuse. Despite Arun Rai’s brutal past she is still trusting of humans, she lets us walk near her, bathe her, and feed her. Its not as if she doesn’t remember her past as elephants have one of the best memories of all animals. Therefore, Arun Rai has chosen to once more trust humans even after all the pain we have caused her. The forgiveness she has displayed is remarkable to me and shows how beautiful and innocent she is. Fortunately for her, her trust in humans will never result in her pain again and she is safe from any sort of abuse at the sanctuary.

The sanctuary is also home to a elephant named Kham Lin (water photos) who is 5 years older then Arun Rai. She was rescued under similar conditions. She was taken from the logging industry and brought to the sanctuary. She has a very different personality from Arun Rai. She has a temper and she gets agitated easily. Of course, this is completely understandable as she was also abused her entire life from 1970 to 2011 when she was rescued. She was over worked and abused everyday. Because of her past experiences she has not regained trust in humans yet. I was lucky enough to be able to give her a bath, as long as she is eating watermelon she is content with people bathing her down! Kinda like me but with pizza.

Both the elephants are rescue elephants and when I say rescue its not as simple as a late night break in to steal a thousand pound elephant. Rather, in order for the rescue of a elephant to not end in blood and fighting the elephant must be bought. A elephant can be anywhere up to $100,000 as the prices for elephants keep going up. Therefore, in order to rescue these elephants it takes so much support from other people all around the world to buy these elephants. Luk, a amazingly influential women in regards to animal conservation has set up 5 different elephant sanctuaries in Thailand and Cambodia. She is responsible for the rescue of these two elephants that we are lucky enough to feed, love and take care of.

Tourism and elephants (my thoughts):

Before I came to SE Asia I was extremely skeptical of elephants being used in the tourism industry. I hated the idea of westerners coming here to ride on their backs and taking gnarly insta-worthy pics! I would hope that most people are not so ignorant and care more about the elephants wellbeing then a new profile picture. First of all, elephants are not rides. They are not meant to be carrying people on their backs for hours on end. But worse then this, and what most people don’t know is that most elephant parks within Thailand and Cambodia still perform traditional “breaking the spirit”  ceremonies. This is where as a teenager the elephant is encaged in a wooden pen just big enough so it can stand but not able to move. From then they are repeatedly beaten and tortured into submission. This tradition has been going on for many years and is a part of the culture of mahout training. However, this practice is unnecessary. This tradition is done so that the elephant will respect and listen to the demands of their mahout. What the mahouts fail to realize is this practice is not necessary in order to have control of their elephants. Lek has demonstrated that positive reinforcement (a training technique that does not punish or abuse the animal) is more effective then training which involves abuse.

Most elephant parks and tourist companies still perform traditional breaking the spirit of the elephants. Even though it may look like the elephants have a love for their mahout it is most often not love but rather a fear of their mahout that makes the elephant obey. If you ever find yourself -round elephants and wondering how they are treated take a look at their ears, as this is a sensitive part of their body and often mahouts will stab them with bull hooks around the ear.

ALSO:

If you see elephants on the streets in cities, stay away and do not support them.

If you see circuses advertising elephant shows, stay away and do not support them.

If you are considering a elephant park who offers rides, stay away and do not support them.

There are good sanctuaries you can go where you know the elephants are being treated as they should be without any form of abuse. I will list some non-abuse sanctuaries here. If your interested in volunteering rather then just a day visit feel free to message me for a list of really great places.

1) Elephant Nature Park - Chiang Mai, Thailand 2) Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary - Siem Reap, Cambodia

The good news (my opinion):

Elephants are in desperate need of help. What little populations of wild elephants that remain are becoming increasingly threatened as their habitat is being destroyed because of illegal logging and forest burring. Domestic elephants are also in desperate need of help. Their value to tourism puts them at the mercy of people who use them to make a living. Elephants must return to the wild. It does not take a genius to notice how out of place and unnatural it is for a elephant to be performing in a circus or walking the city streets. The sanctuary I am working at is part of a movement that focuses on returning elephants to the forest in protected parks where they will be safe from poaching. As for the local people whose income relies on elephants, these people will not be left out of a job. Elephants can still be used in the tourism industry. Sanctuaries like the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary is open to tourists to come feed, touch, bathe and care for these incredible animals. The difference is the mahouts only use positive reinforcement training techniques and elephants are not used as rides for tourists. The purpose and goal of these sanctuaries is not profit but rather the wellbeing of the elephants who live there.

Change is in the air:

You may know of a big tour company called intrepid tours. This tour company will hopefully be the first ripple in a large movement to no longer support elephant riding. As of recently, intrepid tours has stopped supporting riding of elephants in their tours, which is a huge move. As well, a huge elephant park located in the field over to one of Lek’s animal sanctuaries has contacted Luk to help their mahouts learn how to use positive reinforcement rather than abusive training. This park is home to over 40 elephants who would cry out at night when being tortured.  Elephants in Luk’s sanctuary would protest to the cries heard of their friends one field over. Lek’s elephants would become aggressive and try to cross the river to help the elephants crying out. Since this change screams of pain from the park will no longer be heard and the 40 elephants will never feel the sting of a bull hook in their side again.

Elephants can bring so much to Thailand and Cambodia’s future, that is why it is so important that we help support the non-abuse sanctuaries. Elephants can bring in tourism, help promote the conservation of forests, and also they have kick-started the initiative of reforestation. If done correctly, tourism can benefit elephants and in turn elephants can benefit tourism, which provides jobs and profit for the local people.

Here is a link to the sanctuary I worked at if you want to learn more:

http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/tag/elephant-sanctuary-cambodia/

Here is a link that explains more about “breaking the elephant” and its use in the tourism industry. There is also a video, but it is graphic. Watch at your own discretion.

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/breaking-the-spirit-of-elephants-for-use-in-the-tourism-industry/

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Some pictures of the village I worked at. The sand on the beach can't even be seen because of the layer of trash. The second two pictures show a before and after of our clean up. The last picture was the biggest mess to clean up but by the time I left you could see the sand once again :)

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First impressions

I arrived in Phnom Pehn on Saturday. I was taken by a reach-out leader to a hotel where I would wait for the other volunteers. I met up with two other people and we wanted to explore the city a little. We got a tuk tuk, which is a motor bike attached to a carriage and can hold about 4 - 12 people depending on how insane the driver is. The first thing I noticed was all the garbage. I might be pessimistic or maybe I noticed it because thats what I immediately wanted to help clean up. Jordan (one of the other volunteers) mentioned it was sad how poor they lived. To me, I did not find anything about their culture sad, apart from the masses of garbage along the streets. Sadness is defined by lack of happiness. But then what is happiness defined by? Is it defined by money and status cause if so then yes this culture is sad. To me, happiness has nothing to do with money. Of course a starving family is suffering and therefore a certain degree of security is necessary for happiness but security does not necessarily come from money. In my opinion stress and un-fufillment are the biggest factors which would lead to unhappiness in my life. Stress meaning not having time to enjoy the moment because of constant worries about other to-do’s that take your mind out of your experiences. Un-fufillment in my life is by far the biggest reason of why I might feel unhappy. If I am not bettering myself or progressing myself into who I want to be then I feel like a complete waste of time and space. I find fulfilment from doing things like this trip that change the world for the better.

For this reason, I dislike the notion of Westerners coming to change third world countries so they can be more like us. To have our cars, jobs, mansions, houses, status and money. Who are we to say our world is better than theres. Unfortunately, happiness or wellbeing of a country is often measured by GDP which puts third world countries at the very bottom of the list. I would like to see wellbeing measured more in terms of the HPI Happiness Index measurement where it takes into account more then just money but also overall happiness of the citizens and ecological footprint. The HPI places third world countries with a much higher degree of wellbeing.

I think us westerns can learn from them rather, we can come here are learn their culture, their traditions, their interconnectedness with the environment around them. Of course there are things that could definitely help their well-being such as cleaner water, a better system for waste treatment and cleanliness of the environment so that they can continue to live off the land in a cleaner and safer way.

My intentions on this trip are not to change their way of living into our modern way of life. My intention is to come here and to conserve the environment around them that is so rapidly being destroyed so that they may be able to keep living the way they have been for decades.

It is funny how only once you experience the loss of something do you want to preserve other places that are headed for the same loss. If only there was a way to show these people why littering and destroying their environment is disastrous to their exact culture and way of life. Unfortunately for most they will never understand till it has been destroyed.