impossible. But we're only a half hour late.
I'm now riding on the back of a Tuk Tuk with all our bags and luggage
- 15 foreigners carry a lot of stuff. I'm told the road to Mondulkiri
is much improved from it's glory days of pitted dirt tracks and
impossible mud bogs. Fortunately for us we are travelling in the dry
season, so travel in and out of the area is possible. I'm not sure
about now, but just a few years ago, M. Was all but unreachable during
the wet reason. In addition, the area has only recently been re
electrified, after six months straight without. Now the area is hooked
up to hydro power from Viet Nam - much more reliable.
Cambodia has plans to build many many hydro power dams in the future.
It seems unrealistic to me - Cambodia is mostly plains and river delta
with very little elevation to aid a hydro power scheme. The costs are
high - Chinese companies with unreliable environmental credentials,
flooding that will disturb population of indigenous folk who are
already marginalised without the loss of vital and sacred land, as
well as the massive disruption to river ecosystems with the potential
to hinder the breeding migrations of fish that many Cambodians rely on
for protein, habitat of the near extinct freshwater dolphins of the
Mekong river, and huge tracks of land. I have read of one dam project
that would stretch for 10 kilometers at a height of 50 meters and
submerge nearly 900 square km of land. Cambodia is not a big place to
start with.
Dam projects were vigorously promoted by the World Bank for many
years, but are now realizing they rarely produce the intended benefits
and more often cause massive environmental degradation and social and
health woes. Arundhati Roy writes vigorously about the many gone-wrong
dam projects in India. The most affected by there projects are the
ones most marginalised and powerless, further diminishing their
ability to achieve happiness and wholeness, let alone political
equity.
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