Pupils set off for Cambodia expedition

Penarth Times, UK

IT was an emotional and exciting farewell when, at 9am on Monday, June 29, fourteen intrepid explorers set off on a challenge of a lifetime from St Cyres to Cambodia and Thailand.

This is no holiday trip as they will be working at a charity school called the ‘Beautiful Children of Angkor’ in central rural Cambodia.

The local village has no electricity or mains water and the parents of the children earn on average 50p per day. Cambodia is the fourth poorest country in the world. Add the fact that in recent times, a quarter of the population disappeared under the tyrannical rule of the Khmer Rouge and you have a country in need of help.

The pupils from St Cyres will arrive with gifts and will spend a couple of weeks completing manual projects such as concreting, building and painting at the school. They will also spend time with the children, playing games and telling them about themselves.

Once the project is finished, they will use local transport to travel into Thailand and visit the jungles around Kachanaburi (Bridge over the River Kwai).

After learning some jungle techniques, the group will head for the deeper jungles of Northern Thailand where several nights will be spent sleeping in hammocks and trekking through dense undergrowth near the Burmese border.

Finally a long journey will take the team down to Bangkok where, at last, they will have two days to rest before the 14-hour flight back to the UK.

To keep up with the expedition’s progress, go to http://www.photobucket.com/stcyresexpedition which will be updated with photos (depending on access to Internet points in the two countries).