While the blossoming of arts in Cambodia is having a positive impact among many in the community, it is estimated that over half of the people in Siem Reap province still survive on less than 45 cents per day. Schools, technical and vocational training centres, healthcare and more general support still remain unavailable to those unable to pay. Some funding has come in for language schools from foreign companies and local organisations, though children are still supposed to buy their own books. There was one school at the end of our lane where we worryingly noticed that children were being taught how to say ‘We love KFC’  and ‘I want a hamburger’ (we hope that company sponsorship had nothing to do with this but we won’t hold our breath). Given that tourism is a fast-growing industry in Cambodia, studying English can help lead to stability and a future career in the sector. Good local organisations such as Concert (CONnecting Communities, Environment and Responsible Tourism) are helping to fund some very good local schemes as well as showing tourists how they can most effectively help out. Sadly, children begging and pickpocketing on the street are still common sights in the city. Many children have been taught to pickpocket by predatory crime gangs and are made to line the streets into the late evening looking for tourists to hug/handbag grab, while watchful adults pretend to admonish those who are obvious enough to get caught. The ‘milk for money’ scam is also big in Siem Reap. Women clutching tiny babies wander the streets and gather outside supermarkets begging for milk. This is a scam run by one of the local businesses where tourists are tricked into paying ten times the price for a particular brand of tinned milk at a particular shop which the women will give back to the shop as soon as the tourist has disappeared in return for a share in the profits. These women, like the children, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and are basically just pawns in someone else’s larger game. This is why organisations such as Concert are playing such an important role in the battle against the darker effects of tourism. After witnessing the effects of poverty, mine field explosions and environmental degradation first hand, many people feel a real need to do something to help but it is often difficult to know how to go about this in the most effective way. Concert, who have an office in Siem Reap, have lots of ideas on the subject – though using your own initiative can be good too and a couple of travellers we met were teaching a local ten year old girl, who worked in her parents’ shop every day for 12 hours a day, how to swim in their hotel’s pool.  She had never been in a swimming pool before and her excitement really was infectious – even the hotel managers got involved by providing lunch and taking photographs that the girl could take home to show her family. Angkor Wat aside, I suddenly knew why so many people are drawn back to Cambodia time and time again.

Dawn rose as we reached the edges of the suburbs and the city became illuminated with a smoggy haze. At a crossing I noticed a smartly dressed police officer trying to lure a cat off the tracks with a sucking noise while people scurried past him and each other on foot and moped trying to get to work. It was a relief to leave the franticness of the city behind and it wasn’t long before we were in open, breathable countryside – among lush green pastures farmed by one or two early risers. A few stations along, the train began to fill up with local traders carrying bananas, rice packaged in banana leaves and other breakfast delicacies, which seemed to go down well with the other passengers. As we ate some mango slices we had just bought from one of the sellers, the landscape outside began to subtly shift from grazing land into paddy fields which in turn gave way to rivers, stilted housing and large areas of wetland. What we hadn’t read about this train journey from anywhere before is that it provides an absolutely fantastic opportunity to spot wetland birds. The train snaked alongside small canals of water for almost three hours, passing entire fields filled with white ibis, tall statue-like herons, small water rails, kingfishers and countless other wetland inhabitants. For bird watchers and nature lovers this train journey would be worth taking for the wildlife alone (especially as the tickets cost a total of £1.50 each).

The six hours passed quickly and we both managed to have a small sleep before arriving at Aranyaprathet. By now, the sun was gradually climbing the sky and the heat was intensifying, so it was a relief that we met up with Sarah and Guy and tackled the tuk-tuk negotiating together (the actual border point is a short drive from the station). To avoid unnecessary hassle and scamming, we had got e-visas online a few days before, which is well worth doing as without them, tuk-tuk drivers will attempt to drive you to visa points before the border which are all basically scams. Our tuk-tuk driver did attempt this but we were able to present him with our e-visa and demanded to be taken straight to the border, which he reluctantly accepted. The Aranyaprathet/Poipet border crossing has improved massively in recent years, though the government on the Cambodian side have now set up transport schemes for tourists which make it very difficult to get anything apart from government-approved transport to Siem Reap (and is obviously set at inflated tourist prices). We had printed and read a fantastic guide, written by a local who crosses the border often, which explains all the workings of the border crossing and points out the pitfalls. You can find it at Tales of Asia. The border crossing itself was fairly painless. First we were stamped out of Thailand, and then had to walk across a dusty road in between the two checkpoints in order to reach the Cambodian immigration office. This is a major transport hub between the two countries and we saw families pulling heavily laden wagons and sacks, along side trucks full of live pigs squealing in the heat. We had to walk behind the truck all across the border which was difficult to watch.

'Poipet' by MsNina on Flickr

If you don’t have an e-visa you can still buy a visa at the border, though the queues can be very long. Once you’ve got your visa and filled in a health card you can get stamped into Cambodia, which was very quick and efficient (they even take fingerprints) once you reach the office. Once you are on the other side, you are swiftly shepherded onto a bus which takes you to a transport centre where all the government-approved transport options are waiting for you. We have heard that people have still managed to get into Poipet to make their own arrangements for travel, but the guys hanging outside the immigration office make this very difficult for tourists. It is worth trying to get to Poipet to at least eat before your onwards travel as the food at the transport hub is both overpriced and terrible. They will also insist that you must buy some Cambodian riel or dollars at the exchange, but whatever they say, you are not obliged to do this. All their transport prices are in dollars, the de facto currency of Cambodia, so it is worth taking at least $50 with you across the border. We shared one of their cabs which came to $45 which we split between the four of us. There have been reports of some taxis dropping passengers outside Siem Reap if they had been paid upfront but our taxi driver was pretty good and took us to our hotel (the Golden Temple Villa) after asking someone for directions in the town.

The journey from Poipet to Siem Reap takes about three hours but thankfully the road has been much improved (from dirt track to a single gravelly road). It didn’t take long to fully realise how different Cambodia is from its richer Thai neighbour. Buffalo and horse drawn carts were as numerous as cars and chickens and ducks pecked in the dust along most of the roadside. The houses were mainly stilted and wooden with haystacks and cows dotted around front yards. It may be what the Thais term as a more ‘simple existence’ but I couldn’t help but find it beautiful after a week in Bangkok. Cambodia is still a relatively rural country, the most built up towns being Phnom Penh (the capital) and Siem Reap (which is the accommodation hub for those visiting Angkor Wat). The latter is where we were headed and despite being perhaps the most touristy town in Cambodia there are still many delightful pockets of it left to explore, as we were to find out…

After partnering with a Brazilian journalist to share the cost of a cab to the main beach, we passed along a newly-built highway straight to Pantai Cenang, which is also the main ‘tourist’ zone of the island. Some three kilometres of pristine coastline have been systematically blocked off by giant resort hotels and the beaches here are divided into tightly boxed sections for guests from each, while the sea itself has been split into small swimming sections and noticeably larger water-sports areas. We were staying at one of the last cheap hostels available within walking distance of a beach on the island, though we had to pretend to be resort guests in order to access the beach itself. With one notable exception, Langkawi was for us the island of disappointments. Back in 1968, the then Malaysian prime minister decided to ‘turn’ Langkawi into a tourist destination and began by granting it duty-free status. As the cheap drinks began to flow, so did the resorts and everything from the Four Seasons to the Hilton has laid claim to a patch. There are many smaller, less developed islands which make up Langkawi as a whole (actually around 99 in total) and we have been told that those to the North East in particular are still relatively secluded but accessing these on a budget can be a bit of a challenge. Our main reason for stopping here was to catch a ferry to Koh Lipe in Thailand where we hoped to cross the border in a relaxed, beach hut environment but even though we knew the main island was ‘touristy’ we weren’t quite prepared for what we had walked into: the hostel we were staying in was something akin to a club 18-30 holiday camp if one were run out of makeshift cabins surrounding a paddling pool full of ducks. The owner would spend all day sitting by the inflatable pool scattering duck seed while listening to the Badminton results on the radio, an activity he’d replace in the evening with poker and loud drum n’ bass until 3 a.m. The ‘beautiful white-sand beach’ we’d read about in the guidebook was actually a jellyfish-infested and oil-polluted stretch of water and litter-covered sand.

After spending a depressing hour or so in our dimly lit cabin questioning why we had come here, we decided to make the best of the situation by making full use of our beach-blocking neighbour’s pool and exploring the lusher inner parts of the island (which thankfully have been granted national park status). The Langkawi that you see when you step off the mainstream tourist trail is actually well worth exploring. We had read about a couple of local Malaysian naturalists who run highly recommended guided nature treks (see Dev’s Adventure Tours or Jungle Walla) and who only observe and never feed or interfere with the wildlife, so we decided that we would go on one of these in an attempt to restore our dented enthusiasm for the island. We opted to go on the early morning hill trek with a view to spotting some of the island’s famous bird residents. We were picked up just before dawn, though our guide had inadvertently woken up the ducks and dogs and subsequently half the hostel while trying to find our cabin. Leaving behind the quacking and barking, we were soon amongst much quieter, misty fields where we stopped to watch the dawn break. The first bird that our guide spotted was a White-throated Kingfisher, which was perched on an electric wire serenely absorbing the first warming rays of the dawn sun. After a brief pause, we continued to drive further up the mountain that makes up the north of the island. The guide stopped and pointed to a distant tree, where we could see a small dark-blue bird with a long hanging tail that looked like a pair of eyes. It was a Drongo, a word meaning idiot in Australian but in reality it is anything but as one of its main functions is to warn other birds and animals of approaching predators in return for the pick of the mid-morning insects. It is also a brilliant mimic: we heard it impersonate three or four other species while standing near by, a little like the Lyre birds we’d heard in Australia.

Our journey carried on up through the rainforest road which was alive with a tropical dawn chorus, courtesy of both birds and monkeys who we could hear cracking branches in the canopies above. Our guide spotted a few other species before we heard the whoosh, whoosh sound of some large wing-beats. It had begun to lightly rain and our guide had a look of intense concentration on his face.
He led us slowly around a corner and there in the canopy of a large forest tree was a Great Hornbill drying its wings in the sun.

It looked almost pterodactyl-like and we weren’t surprised to hear that the Great Hornbill is amongst the largest of its species. It seemed that the light dawn rain was in our favour as we went on to see many more Great Hornbills gather in the trees and whoosh over our heads. We were also lucky enough to spot the significantly smaller Oriental Pied Hornbill, the rare sight of a pair of Wreathed Hornbills who were also drying off in the sun, a Giant Squirrel, some Dusky Langur Monkeys and a few Macaques. After a brief visit to the peak and a pit stop in our guide’s uncle’s restaurant for a Malaysian brunch of omelette pancake and a Teh Tarik, we were taken to some open pastures to spot Kingfishers. Sadly we didn’t see any more but we did spot Green Bee Eaters, Golden Orioles, Bitterns, Snakes, Herons and a Pitcher Plant. We were also shown how to make natural plasters by wetting and rolling the leaves of a local plant until it made a gummy paste, which the locals use to stick over and heal wounds. After this trip, Langkawi suddenly didn’t seem so bad after all and even the ducks and the hostel dogs were slightly more endearing on our return (though this feeling sadly never extended to the post midnight drum n’ bass). We were glad that our stay had ended on a brighter note but were both excited and relieved at the prospect of setting off the next morning with a mission to cross the Thai border by sea.

After what seemed like the longest drive I’d ever been on, we finally reached Tanah Rata and made our way through the notorious highland rain to our accommodation. We’d tried to book into a hostel that we’d read about called Father’s Guest House, but the church which owns the land the hostel was on had recently decided to take it back and so we were taken to their other guest house, Gerard’s Place. It was about 10 minutes walk from the town and was located in a complex of mock Tudor buildings, slightly reminiscent of an Austrian ski chalet village. Jay, our host, was very welcoming and gave us many good tips on local walks and wildlife. She was part of a local environmental group called REACH (Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands) who not only aim to educate and inform the local population about current environmental issues but also actively monitor local problems such as increased pollution levels in rivers due to farming run-off. They are a very impressive grassroots organisation and also serve as a refreshing example of what people can do when they group together for a cause.

The guest house itself was a very relaxing base from which to explore the surrounding area. In true highlands style, it was very wet but we decided to take a trip to the ‘BOH’ Sungai Palas tea plantation, which is one of the oldest in the highlands. I had seen pictures of tea plantations before but was not prepared for just how extensive it was. Despite being a man-moulded landscape, I couldn’t help but find it beautiful – especially when the mists rolled gently over the hill peaks. The walk through the plantation may have been damp (though strangely this didn’t deter a wedding party whose bride and groom were being photographed, posing among the tea hedges), but the café at the end was definitely worth the trek. The ‘BOH’ tea café overhangs the plantation from an elevated height, providing spectacular 360 degree views of the rolling hills. The choice of teas was fantastic and unlike KL, there wasn’t a condensed milk carton in sight, which made for a welcome change. This, in combination with the damp weather and scones with local strawberry jam almost made me feel like I was sitting in a countryside café back at home. This thought was soon interrupted however, by several small dots which came into vision, moving around the hedges, dragging huge sacks of tea leaves behind them. A couple appeared to have clippers, which is a now old fashioned method of tea picking and has become increasingly rare in recent years thanks to the introduction of electric, tea-stalk-cutting strimmers. Some locals argue that this has had a negative impact on the taste of the tea but as the pickers are paid by the kilo (and at only 20 cents per kilo), you can hardly blame them for making use of this newly available machinery. A local man, whose mother had been a tea picker some 20 years ago, told us that there are no longer many Malaysians working on the plantations as the owners prefer to employ cheaper foreign labour from Indonesia, the Philipines and Nepal. The workers are usually signed up for a minimum of two years, during which time they live in huts (pictured above) in the plantation grounds. The tea harvesters we met seemed in good spirits – perhaps working in such lush, green surroundings helps – but there’s not doubt that it’s hard work which it’s easy to forget about when buying mega packs of tea bags in the supermarket (most of which incidentally contain cheap tea dust rather than actual tea leaves).

The next day brought even more rain than the day before but as it was our last in the highlands, we decided to make the most of it by hiking along one of the jungle trails to the Robinson falls. We had been tempted to embark on a longer walk in search of a Rafflesia (the largest known, and perhaps worst smelling, flower in the world) which was currently in bloom in the highlands, but after a couple of disappointing reports from other trekkers who had returned to our accommodation drenched, covered in mud and pretty miserable, we decided to forego it in favour of the easier path. The river that runs through Tanah Rata had started to swell and was running furiously alongside the jungle path, its banks barely containing the strong earthy-brown current. The walk snaked by some of the infamous highland strawberry farms, as well as several home made jam stalls before turning into a more densely forested area where the rain mists thickly gathered at canopy level. After crossing several bridges and shallow streams, we reached the falls which were thundering down a ravine. The town of Tanah Rata was only about 20 minutes away on foot but this felt like a different world, one through which elephants and tigers used to freely prowl. Sadly, as the human presence increased in the highlands, their habitat quickly diminished and in 1974 an elephant trans-location group was set up to move any ‘problem’ elephants away from the highlands, to various national parks and sanctuaries.  Some say that the highlands lost something when this was allowed to take place and that wild beauty was sacrificed in favour of the creation of a sort of controlled tourist park atmosphere (something which the British undoubtedly had a hand in creating – many of the highlands’ villas still bear the unmistakable marks of the British penchant for clipped lawns and manicured gardens). As long as there are groups such as REACH campaigning against further deforestation and unnecessary development however, I can’t help but feel that the highlands still stands a fighting chance.

Picture from Moving Planet Samoa

In the morning that we arrived in Samoa, we were supposed to be heading to the local fish market, but secretly not relishing the thought of staring at a lot of dead or slowly suffocating creatures, our attention was drawn elsewhere…by a group of men, women and children walking along the street wearing 350.org t-shirts and holding banners displaying the slogan ‘Walk the Talk Samoa’. September 24th 2011 may have been the day that Samoa played Fiji in the Rugby World cup (causing much excited anticipation across the island) but it also turned out to be Moving Planet Day, an event organised by 350.org, the group focused on ‘building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis‘, and in the case of this particular event, targeting the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. The San Francisco Bay Guardian interviewed Ewan Cameron, the Pacific Coordinator for the 350.org events, who was at the event in Samoa. When asked why it was such a big deal for him and other Pacific islanders, he answered:

‘Because the climatic impacts are already being felt, people and communities within the Pacific are being forced to relocate and are being displaced. These problems are not being exaggerated, Coastal areas are eroding, saltwater from king tides is damaging staple foods that people rely on, climate change is a real issue. The science is there, it can be proven, and on top of that major emitters are violating peoples’ rights!’

This tied in with a series of lectures we heard on the boat given by Dr Cluny Mcpherson, of Massey University, Auckland, whose research focuses on social, economic and political development in Oceania. The climate refugee problem is a real one, and even small rises in sea change are likely to submerge entire Pacific islands, especially atolls which are often only a few metres above sea level. Countries such as Australia and New Zealand are currently continuing talks through which it is hoped that some sort of agreement regarding the housing of climate refugees might be reached. Discussions are still in their early stages but it is not difficult to see why events such as Moving Planet Day are so important to the many Pacific islands who marked it. Samoa may have been ‘the last place on Earth’ to commence the event this year, thanks to its place on the cusp of the international date line, but it certainly showed that it doesn’t just ‘talk the talk’!

In 2012, however, Samoa will be leading the event in time as well as enthusiasm, as it was announced earlier this year that it is set to jump from being East of the international dateline to the West on the 29th December 2011. Instead of being 21 hours behind Eastern Australia and 23 hours behind New Zealand (two of its major trading partners and expatriate hubs), it will soon be 3 hours ahead of Sydney and 1 hour ahead of New Zealand, hopefully bringing benefit to the island in a variety of ways.

This is not the only change Samoa has instigated in recent years. We fitted in a quick visit to the Samoan parliament where we found out that in 2009, the entire island changed from driving on the right hand side of the road to the left, apparently due to the increased number of right handed vehicles being imported from Japan (which are cheaper than those on offer from the US). We were told by someone we met in the local market that on the day, reminders were put on the back of buses and a few police officers were dotted around the island to remind people, but the transfer day went off without a hitch. It was clear from the outset that this was one spirited island, and quite different in many ways from its easterly counterpart, American Samoa, not least in its autonomy. While in American Samoa, we noticed that most peopled referred to their neighbour as Western Samoa even though its name had been officially changed to Samoa in July 1997, and referred to as such by the United Nations for many years before that date. It transpired that the ‘US territory’ objected to the fact that Samoa had been officially freed of its colonial given name because it feared that its own identity was threatened by the change. This reaction may well be a case of a rattled cage, which points (uncomfortably for some) to the fact that more and more Pacific islands are making bids to move towards a more autonomous way of living. Examples of this can be seen through the increase in successful island product based businesses (such as black pearl farming) as well as through food and energy security schemes which aim to see islands reducing their reliance on imports and external help by introducing their own ‘future proof’ sustainable island-centric systems.

Samoa is at the forefront of one such scheme which has seen it pledge to become one of the first carbon neutral economies in the world by 2020. Its aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by investing in a wide range of renewable energy sources, which could include a combination of solar and geothermal energy in addition to wind, tidal and hydro power. At the moment it is very much a case of trial and error but Samoa is experimenting and trialling widely, keen to stick to its target. Coconut oil from the plentiful coconut trees on the island is being tested as part of a biofuel mixture for use in vehicles and to generate power, while biomass (from woodchips) and biogas (from pig waste) are also being investigated as alternative fuel sources.

Independence often brings with it an increased sense of individual responsibility and so perhaps it is not surprising that Samoa is so forward-thinking. The independence movement was not easy but in Samoa it hinged upon peaceful, non-violent resistance (the Mau movement), which ultimately led to the island gaining back its independence from New Zealand in 1962. Interestingly, this was not mentioned in Mark Kurlansky’s book Nonviolence: History of a Dangerous Idea, though it rightfully should have been. The Scottish author, Robert Louis Stevenson, who had come to live in Samoa for rest and recovery from a respiratory illness in 1890, played a part in encouraging the beginnings of this movement before he died there in 1894 . He was, and is still, loved by the Samoans who affectionately refer to him as Tusitala, or ‘Teller of Tales’. We couldn’t leave Samoa before visiting his house in Vailima and we thoroughly enjoyed looking around – it has been preserved more or less in the way he left it. The study of Robert Louis Stevenson and his work are important subjects in the Samoan curriculum and there was an enthusiastic and informative guide in every room. The lady covering the top floor told us about his burial on the hill and rather hauntingly sang the traditional Samoan song version of the words which are etched on his grave:

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Outside, a Samoan ‘ava (a drink very similar to the Kava we sampled in Hawai’i) ceremony was being put on for tourists, though at least in this case it is actually still part of traditional Samoan culture. Perhaps due in part to its independence, Samoa has held on to its language and traditions including ‘ava ceremonies, dances, singing and tattooing and the people we met genuinely seemed happy and proud of their island and its traditions.

We left Samoa feeling refreshed by this, and not just from the ‘ava and afternoon swim in the pool at Aggie Grey’s (a rather odd colonial hotel and haunt of old Hollywood movie stars). This is one island we would really love to go back to one day if we ever get the chance.

Kuleana – means both privilege and responsibility

‘No make big body’ – try to not to act like you own the place

Kane - Life giver or life by Nature

Papa - Earth Mother

Aloha – Most commonly used for hello and goodbye but also encapsulates affection, love and mercy

ʻOhana – the family or community you share with (not necessarily defined by blood)

Kamaʻāina - child of the Soil

and a phrase I particularly like: Holo Holo – to go out for the fun of it, where it’s not the destination but the journey which counts.

Those considered to be native Hawaiians (Kama’āina’s) are descendants of the ancient Polynesians who settled the islands before it was ‘discovered’ by Captain Cook in 1778. In Hawaiian society, children were traditionally raised outdoors and had strong ties with nature, respecting it as the sustainer of life. They grew up to be caretakers of the land on which they lived and this land was traditionally divided into sections known Ahupuaʻa. Every person living on each Ahupuaʻa had access to shared tools in order to work their land and were also entitled to share in all its produce. The concept of land ownership did not exist in Hawaiʻi until the flurried arrival of Westerners (in the form of traders, whalers, missionaries and politicians) who put pressure on King Kamehameha III to introduce a land ownership system similar to the ones they were used to in their home countries. The Great Mahele (land division) took place in 1848. Two years later The Kuleana act of 1850 was brought in, which did grant ‘commoners’ the right to apply for ownership of land they cultivated and had Kuleana over, but for many the concept behind the application was a new and foreign notion and the application itself required the ability to read and write. The majority of islanders were illiterate and so were therefore ultimately cheated out of their land.

Estate development remains a large problem for the native population of Hawaiʻi as foreign investors continue to drive up land prices. Western control of Hawaiʻi also had other consequences in the form of the suppression of native culture, language and history. Teaching the Hawaiian language in schools was banned until the 1980′s and the agricultural system was changed beyond all recognition (to date, a large proportion has been set aside for mono-cropping, mainly consisting of pineapple and sugar cane crops, though both are now in decline as a result of factories moving to cheaper production sites in Asia and South America).

However, by the 1970′s – perhaps in response to the growing Americanised view of Hawaiʻi held by tourists and the wider world – what has been termed as the ‘Second Renaissance of Hawaiʻi’ began to take shape. This centred around a resurgence of Hawaiian culture and tradition, through which people began to trace back their roots and rediscover their language, traditional ceremonies, voyaging techniques, storytelling and other indigenous practices. Today, there are groups whose mission it is to promote Hawaii’s Hawaii through offering alternative travel experiences to visitors and tackling the agricultural problems with an organic/sustainable agricultural programme – see the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation for more details. The island of Moloka’i has also seen success through protest action which was aimed at blocking cruise liners docking at, or near, the island. Back in 2002, a Holland America liner tried to dock and was greeted by over 100 protesters waving banners and wearing t-shirts displaying the slogan – ‘No Cruise Ships on Moloka’i’. The protesters were mainly taking action on environmental grounds but were also keen to show that “if you’re going to do business on Moloka’i, you’re going to have to go through a community process first”, something the cruise line had thus far avoided. Their protest was successful and to this date no liners have docked on the island. The islanders do welcome visitors who journey by ferry from other islands and arrive in smaller numbers, thereby limiting their impact on the natural features of the island and the reefs which surround it.

See our next post for our time in Hilo, Kona and Honolulu…

While walking around the Holland America ship that we were on, we noticed a lot of environmental pledges signed by many of the crew and the Captain as well as talk of ‘stewardship of the environment’. The daily newsletter we received in our cabin also contained info snippets announcing various environmental schemes being put into practice on board. For example, in the first week we were informed that Holland America are:

‘proud to be partnered with Marine Conservation Institute to provide sustainable seafood on all of our ships. Holland America Line [HAL] is committed to healthy oceans, and preserving and protecting ocean resources, for now and for future generations…We have replaced all of our dry cleaning machines that depended on hazardous chemicals, such as perchloroethylene, and replaced them with machines that are able to use fruit extracts as cleaning agents.’

All this points towards the underlying fact that cruise ships have come in for a lot of flack over the last two decades because of the pollution they pour out into the air and oceans through the discharging of various shades of murky waste water as well as the fumes they pump out of their increasingly massive smoke stack exhausts. Friends of the Earth (among other organisations) and even some passengers themselves have repeatedly called on them to clean up their act and it does seem that little by little they are starting to respond. We had heard that there was an Environmental Officer on board and we wanted to find out how much of the environmental concern we’d seen expressed aboard was just PR stuff and how much they were really addressing the serious issues, so we went to reception to see if we could get an interview with him. The lady at the desk said that we could give her a couple of questions which she could email to him and then asked us if we were from Greenpeace, which we found quite amusing.

Later that day we received a phone call saying that the Environmental Officer would like to meet with us and so a time and place was scheduled for later that afternoon. The meeting took place just off the main the lobby and the Officer was a straight talking, honest and interesting man which made for a good conversation. At first he was a little stern, perhaps wary of our motives but he said that our question (to do with how on board waste was disposed of on long voyages such as this) had been a relevant one and he was happy to talk through it with us.

Straight off he told us that the title ‘Environmental Officer’ is misleading because it doesn’t really describe what he does – the carbon footprint of the vessel, for example, is not his concern. Instead he sees himself as more of a Compliance Officer who is there to ensure that the ship’s waste disposal practices etc. are adhering to the legal requirements of each territory the ship sails through. In 2002, Holland America were fined at least USD$2million for illegally dumping waste while in port in Alaska and ever since, the presence of an Environmental Officer such as himself is the norm (although several other ships in the HAL fleet have been fined for waste dumping and air pollution since, mostly offences which took place in Alaska). On board, waste water is filtered through a bioreactor (similar to those found in aquariums) but the disposal itself is controlled by a computer system which tests the purity of the waste before dropping it. Bilge water has to be 15 parts per million of oil or less otherwise the valve won’t physically let it go, and in this instance, it is further filtered until it meets the required level. The Environmental Officer is responsible for monitoring the computer’s output and cross checking the results chart and log.

All territories have their own waste dumping laws and Alaska’s is one of the toughest, determining that no waste lower than category “A” (which contains less bacteria and impurities than the drinking water on board the ships) can be discharged. No bilge (oil related waste), food waste or grey (shower and laundry)/black (sewage) water is allowed to be dumped. Alaska sends ocean officers and rangers aboard all docked boats to double check that all systems and waste disposal logs match up. If not, the cruise company and the boat’s Captain/senior staff can be in serious trouble.

Unfortunately, not all countries have the same strict regulations as Alaska and waste disposal laws can vary from port to port even in the same country. The USA – Alaska in particular – is well known to be the toughest but others, particularly developing countries who need the money from tourism are not so hard line and at best adopt the internationally agreed MARPOL (the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships) standards as their own. In 2010, the Vancouver Sun hit out with a headline that cruise ships were turning BC waters ‘Into a Sewage Bowl’ by being allowed to dump grey water (from the bathrooms and laundry) and sewage into Canadian waters before entering Alaska because of the laxer laws and regulation in Canada.

Alarmingly, even if a country forbids waste dumping in port, this doesn’t mean that the ship won’t dump it into the ocean at all but that they must go at least 12 nautical miles away from shore before disposing of the waste. Processed food (sieved and turned into a ‘mashed potato substance’ described by the Environmental Officer as ‘food for fish’) is commonly disposed of but ships are also legally allowed to dispose of shredded glass and tin if dumped 12 nautical miles from land. The EO said that this is sometimes processed in with the food waste by ‘some companies’, which can’t be at all good for the marine life! Interestingly, the Barcelona Convention prohibits all ships sailing through the Mediterranean from dumping any waste except for food waste – so no tin and glass.

The particular ship that we were on had “MSD-3″ (Marine Sanitation Device) processors on board. Many cruise vessels still use MSD-2 processors or even earlier models and the expense in replacing these mean that many cruise companies are reluctant to replace them until they have to. We were told that Alaska wants to bring in new laws by 2015 which will tighten waste processing even further but cruise lines are contesting this as many of the fleet won’t be up to standards by that time and would be forced into taking alternative routes, denting profit margins in the process (Alaska being one of the most popular cruise destinations). This might be a problem for the Volendam too as they won’t be able to get the next grade of processors until they get a new ship, so I’m interested to see what happens with this…

The EO couldn’t answer our questions relating to fuel as his area of expertise is waste disposal but apparently it is now illegal for cruise ships to burn the highly polluting bunker fuel many of them favour (due its lower cost)  within 12 nautical miles of the Californian coast and so a new low-sulfur diesel fuel is being used by most (which is something at least).

Ironically, recycling seems to have taken a backwards turn. In the 80′s and 90′s, most waste (which could be) was recycled and the ships were often incentivised to do so but now that they have to pay most places to take their waste, a lot of ships aren’t bothering (hence the crushing of glass). Holland America do run a recycling scheme though where any money gained from recycling is put into a crew fund which in turn encourages the crew to make the effort to separate napkins/wine bottles and corks etc. from kitchen and stateroom waste. There were recycling bins in our room for putting paper and glass which was a promising sign. Canada will apparently still take the recycling as will Australia and New Zealand but the USA will not. Others will take certain waste products such as cooking oil and sludge oil (Hong Kong) or will take some things but not others (no recycling of toner cartridges in the UK).

On board the ship, the ‘Environmental Officer’ has the power to go over the heads of the whole crew and even the Captain if necessary (but has never needed to as the Captain is ultimately responsible for his/her ship and can be jailed if its found in breach of conduct). We found the conversation very interesting all in all. What it highlighted was that although cruise lines are now taking waste disposal seriously (to avoid fines), it is the laws and the law enforcement of individual ports and countries which ultimately make the difference and so it is these that need to be tightened up if cruise companies as a whole are to really clean up their act.

‘became a household name’

During our short stay in Santa Monica, we lodged at the very pink on the outside but green at heart, family run Sea Shore Motel on Main Street (which is also apparently the ‘greenest street in Santa Monica‘). ‘Green’ businesses along the parade are rewarded according to the efforts that they put into:  environmentally-preferred procurement; employee education; ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ practices; using environmentally friendly/sustainable products for building work; promoting alternative transportation and using natural daylight and ventilation instead of electric lights and HVAC systems. For restaurants, it additionally helps if they compost all organic waste via the City of Santa Monica Food Scraps program; use eco-friendly cleaning products and biodegradable to-go containers usually made from sugar cane fibre and corn. Some of the names of shops along the street do probe that ‘only in California’ feeling – ‘Euphoria seeks RAWvolution – Conscious food for Conscious people’ being one of them.  Even though I know they mean food or health conscious in particular, their choice of name lead me to imagine them refusing to serve a line of sleep walking and concussed customers. The food is delicious though (and the choice is plentiful with Mexican, Thai, Indian and Californian inspired dishes on offer).

As sundown approached, we headed for the beach and spent our evening walking along the winding beach paths towards Venice beach and watching the beautiful sunset from almost deserted stretches of sand. It was easy to forget how close we were to LA here (give or take the odd designer track suit and minuscule dog in handbag) but it must be a wonderful proximity for those seeking a space to breathe after a hot day in the hectic crunch of the central city. Before we arrived, I had a sneaking suspicion that the whole ‘Sustainable Santa Monica’ thing would be at least, in part, fuelled by a lot of Greenwash and city rivalry but I am pleased to say that I was wrong. I was here just five years ago, when open topped sports cars cruising the streets were a very common sight but this time around, there was a new beast on the road – the electric car.  Santa Monica really does seem to have put its money where its mouth is and we saw more electric car charging points/stations here than we had anywhere else in California so far (bad luck Jeremy Clarkson, no excuses for failing to adequately charge your electric car battery here).

Santa Monica also marked the point in our journey where we needed to start thinking carefully about our onward voyage from the US. We had  heard that San Pedro (a little further down the coast in the direction of San Diego) was a major international port and home to a number of shipping companies. If we wanted to evaluate our options outside of the cruise/freighter routes we had found online then this was the place to go, so this is where we headed next.