Hey Travel Geekers,
Next week I’ll be back in Malaysia for the umpteenth time for a short weekend doing visa paperwork. But while I’m there, I’ll more than likely run into something cool to film. So maybe I’ll do an update from the road. Those of you who caught the documentary that I filmed in Penang might enjoy seeing more of it from a different angle.
In other news, for those who have been following my video and Facebook updates on my recent filming junkets in Northern Thailand and Laos, I’ll start editing the footage from the Phuket Vegetarian Festival and northern hill tribes of Laos and Thailand after I return.
It will be fun finally getting these out since, all told, I’ve been back and forth filming in this area since the end of 2009.
These won’t start releasing until after the New Year 2014, and will only be about half of what I have planned for my docs in Laos and Cambodia.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3vFnpxoIPw&w=560&h=315]
Then, hopefully around March, I’ll finally complete filming down the Mekong, through the Ho Chi Minh Trail (and other war-torn areas that I talked about in my latest Laos update) and down into Cambodia where I’ll be completing a focus piece on the freshwater Irrawaddy Dolphins living just south of the border.
Their numbers are in huge decline. So this will be a bittersweet trip, encompassing not just the awe of seeing freshwater dolphins for the first time (not to mention a rare opportunity), but also to film these creatures in what may well be their remaining years in existence. Hopefully I will be able to add my footage to the pool of collective media behind this wholly necessary movement to save them from extinction.
It will be as important as anything I’ve ever done. And so when that time comes, I’ll hope to call on my 35,000 readers and friends and social networks and contacts and those who have enjoyed my efforts in documenting international cultures and causes these last ten years.
Help me get the word out and maybe we can help the impoverished people of Cambodia and these amazing creatures in one fell swoop, by increasing the eco-tourism to the area and decreasing the need for net fishing along this fragile strip of waters.
More to come on that. It’s going to be an exciting year!
Thanks for spending it with me!