Spiralling Down the Rabbit Hole Of Paradise Lost and Ketamine Spiders

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StroppyChops
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Re: Spiralling Down the Rabbit Hole Of Paradise Lost and Ketamine Spiders

Post by StroppyChops »

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 12:15 am
StroppyChops wrote:
CEOCambodiaNews wrote: Fri May 19, 2017 3:48 pmThe bedsheets stink of someone else’s tropical sweat.
Sure, tell yourself that - it's sweat. Mrs Stroppy and I were having to pick the "sweat" off the provided sheets on a sleeper train in Vietnam a few years ago. You never forget.
Hawt.
Yeah, it was, the promised air conditioning also wasn't working.
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CEOCambodiaNews
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Re: Spiralling Down the Rabbit Hole Of Paradise Lost and Ketamine Spiders

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

This somewhat related thread on Koh Rong was started about the same time as the OP, in 2015. All reports seem to agree that it was pretty wild at the time. And now ?

Many Tourists Leave Koh Rong Island when Extra Police Arrive
https://cambodiaexpatsonline.com/newswor ... t4547.html
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jaynewcastle
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Re: Spiralling Down the Rabbit Hole Of Paradise Lost and Ketamine Spiders

Post by jaynewcastle »

Kok Rong is getting busier & busier all the time as more travellers find out about this amazing island, & more & more better quality accommodation is built, offering AC & 24hr electricity etc to those travellers who want more comfortable accommodation don't want to stay in a room with no AC & just the bare basics. Have a look at booking.com etc, to see whats available on the island now, compared to just 3-4 years ago

The number of ferry seats each day to the island has also seen a huge growth, due to the increasing numbers of visitors who go either for the day & to spend a few days there

People who have never been to the island make themselves look a bit silly by posting their negative opinions, based on 3rd hand out of date information :)
Last edited by jaynewcastle on Sun May 21, 2017 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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John Bingham
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Re: Spiralling Down the Rabbit Hole Of Paradise Lost and Ketamine Spiders

Post by John Bingham »

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 3:26 pm This somewhat related thread on Koh Rong was started about the same time as the OP, in 2015. All reports seem to agree that it was pretty wild at the time. And now ?

Many Tourists Leave Koh Rong Island when Extra Police Arrive
https://cambodiaexpatsonline.com/newswor ... t4547.html
The answer is in that thread. There were loads of mysterious deaths and loads of robberies going down, so the authorities beefed up the security for a bit...
Silence, exile, and cunning.
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General Mackevili
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Re: Spiralling Down the Rabbit Hole Of Paradise Lost and Ketamine Spiders

Post by General Mackevili »

Seems Koh Rongers on Facebook are pretty livid about the picture he paints of their beloved island.

He wants to write a 2017 follow-up as well. Haha, he is getting no love on there! There are a lot more comments, but I can show a few:

Image

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Script:
Spoiler:
I wrote an article about my experience on Koh Rong back in 2015. I was met by a community resisting the picture I painted of the island, so I decided to write a follow up.

The Koh Rong I experienced was a fun, drug fuelled mess, but that somehow didn't seem to have a positive impact on locals. Koh Rong in 2017 seems to be different. I would like to gather some more material to write a follow up.

What are the positive impacts of having westerners on the island? How did the island scene evolve over time?





It's an entertaining read. I mean very sensationalized but I can tell you were there in 2015. The main problem I have with it is the insinuation of danger. Violence is very rare in our area particularly if you compare it to, for example Sihanoukville. You are very off the mark and presumptuous to link any sentiments you felt in the area to the assault on Jones and Mike at broken heart guesthouse. I think you get muted enthusiasm towards feedback from our community because it is so dated (not your fault... you did right it two years ago) and because our community is working very hard to show more positive elements I'm the face of much adversity. I've lived here 7 years, longer than most, but can happily say the community has never felt closer and the benefits that brings are palpable. Like I said it's a readable exaggeration of a moment of our past.





As is usually the case here, this particular act of violence can be traced to the typical culprits: business animosity and greed. It is very rare that we experience random and unexpected violence toward foreigners. In almost every case (barring a few occasional incidents of violent crime that happen with far more regularity in our own countries than they do here in Cambodia), the violent incidents that frighten tourists have occurred between individuals who know each other. Business animosity, jealousy, and greed fuel these incidents. There is no recurrent climate of violence being directed toward random tourists. If one digs a little into the backstory, there is ALWAYS an underlying personal conflict involving property, money, and animosity that has zero to do with people visiting on holiday. The soul of good journalism is research.





Pietro Buzzanca Drugs were here long before westerners.... hard drugs aswell I'm not just talking about weed... they're everywhere in Cambodia. Read any issue of the Khmer times or pp post and you'll see what I mean. I take exception to you saying you don't think koh rong is a violent place "violence was bound to erupt" another statement you made without proper research is "I doubt the quality of these children's life has improved". Maybe you didn't mean offence but this is our lives you are affecting. This is how I feed my family and how I pay the wages of my 25 Cambodian staff... who all have families. Articles like this get passed around the backpacker circuit like gospel and the rumour mill doesn't care how accurate it is or demand a follow up article.There would be no school if it wasn't for FOKR. Set up by westerners, ran by a Cambodian friend of mine who came to the island when the part scene started. School dinner funding was cut a couple of years back so who goes around to collect for it? You'd have to come back to find out. Not just education either what healthcare would there be for locals of tourism hadn't arrived. You clearly have met some of the main people involved but I'm not surprised they're reluctant to talk to you after the hatchet job you've just done on us by sharing that article where 1000s of potential customers will read it and possibly decide not to come. For a balanced view you should come back you can't research it anywhere except here.





Not really much more needs to be said but you should possibly think of withdrawing your post on the back packer group. Things about gangs of khmers carrying tasers wearing balaclavas, i mean really? I have been living here 4 years never heard anything like that, i mean NEVER! your damaging an already tarnished area that alot of my friends and myself are trying to improve. You shared that post in a deceptive manner also. If you had come out and said 'I wrote this article two years ago give it a read' our reaction would have been different. But you posed as a genuine backpacker and thats not right. Think before you act man!
Also what us 'messed up westerners' have done since we got here is pretty much build a reputable tourism destination. Providing jobs, education, healthcare, stability and the strengthening of a community which would have been bulldozed by larger companies.





Look, kudos to you for being open to conversation. I know all too well both the positive and negative impacts of tourism on the island. I do however feel your writing reflects what you wanted to see, and hyperbole abounds. Without wading into the minefield that is what is written, I do have one request - please remove that picture of the kids on the beach. You want to contribute positively to the experience of Cambodian kids? Don't throw up naked photos of them around on the internet. It's a start.





I am writing an update to the article out of respect for what you say you are trying to do.

But please, don't make the mistake of feeling that this is something I owe you.

I welcome every help I can get to paint a truthful picture of what the island is today.

You don't have to help, just as much as I don't have to write a follow up.

I will not censor the article because it's bad for your business, and I will not follow the editorial directions of people that clearly have interests at stake.

I will wait until tonight to see if I can gather more material and then work on the update.

Thank you





For a truly balanced article you obviously need to come back and see for yourself the changes that have taken place in the last couple of years. Obviously if you're in another part of the word that's a big ask. If you can't come back to do your research in person please make it very clear that you haven't personally set foot on the island for the last two years so you're basing the article on whatever info you've been provided by those that have





Laura Grace, I posted my comment directly on his Medium page, and he asked me not to call him a liar. But he painted a picture of an island where absolutely everyone was on drugs, where women were all sluts and that the foreigners here are a bad influence on the locals, particularly their children. He also seemed upset that he paid for a flop house and got, well a flop house because he was too damn cheap to stay in a nice place. People sniff cocaine in clubs around ITALY where he is from every saturday night yet he did not talk about that. He did scorn drug use in the initial paragraphs of his article, but he did not honestly declare his opposition to recreational drug use. He just inferred his narrow minded judgmental attitude about it. Why this article now? Is he a lazy writer? Did he want to trash drug users? Or judge women, cause his attitude was pretty damn sexist, and a bit creepy as well. He defames the island after not being here for two years? I sense an agenda here. Maybe some people were taking drugs, I don't know, but it looks like he purposefully sought them out, so he could poke the bear, because he's a judgmental prude. And as for the children, they didn't live on this island until the foreigners came, then their parents came to work and made enough money to actually afford children in the first place. There would be very few children here if there wasn't a tourist industry, and he just wrote something that will damage that industry based on lies and take food right out of those children's mouths. This is the hypocrisy of the conservative, who spends all their time telling others how to live their lives and leave nothing but devastation in their wake. He lied about MY MAGIC ISLAND, and I for one will never forget, or forgive that.





Pietro Buzzanca, unfortunately you and your friend are wrong. It is her island! And my island! And so many peoples island! Its everyone that lives theres island! And what you have done is write a slanderous article about their house and their home and insult an entire community and threaten their livelihood. That takes some doing! I dont even know why you keep responding to peoples comments. You're clearly just a dick with no concept of what you saw and you've written an article that is 2 years outdated. Several local police follow this group as well. And what you have done is suggest that businesses are selling drugs. Maybe in 2015 one or two were, but not any more. But as a result of your article I would not be surprised to see a higher police presence on the island giving the businesses a harder time than they already do.

I really dont think you fully understand the negative impact that your writing could have on this community. And to be shot down like that in a piece of writing (THAT IS NOT EVEN RELEVANT ANYMORE) makes us wonder why the fuck we bothered kicking drugs off the island, building a school, setting up an emergency services team, offering free medical care to locals and backpackers, and investing money in reducing the amount of waste we produce.

I've been pretty uninvolved with what's being said on this thread so far but when you, a cheap, sex obsessed arsehole that seems to be incredibly socially awkward tell someone that has devoted so much time and effort to the wellbeing of that island and its community then then you offend me as well!

HOW.FUCKING.DARE.YOU!

And I'm past the point of us inviting you to come back and see how we've improved the quality of life. If you do not remove the post or very drastically reword it I will look into the penalties for unjustified slandering of people of businesses across social media.

As I say. You can rewrite it if you like. Just take the descriptions of the people out, many of them still live on the island and do not want to be associated with the main topic of debate. The descriptions of the bars (my bar actually gets a mention and not in a bad way but I want nothing to do with your writing so please remove it). Where people potentially got drugs from or who was offering them as that has changed dramatically since you last visited. And then you've got yourself an article that would be non slanderous and non insulting to everyone. Admittedly its not gona make a good read, but it'll be more accurate





If you do come back, I would truly like you to meet and sit with my boss. Told us story few weeks ago of how things were here before westerners came to the island. After khmer rouge soldiers and army left the island, his family and few others came here and established this fishing village. They left their home-town to come live here. Thai boat would stop here and local were selling them ketamine, just kidding, they were selling crabs and fish to them. After a while, or perhaps in dry season, fish and crabs got rarer and money stopped coming in. They did not even have enough to feed themselves. Many families moves back to their home-town. Others were to ashamed to go home empty-handed. They would look in the river for shells, snails or in the jungle for whatever they could find to feed themselves. Some of them stayed, some of them left for good , many of them came back. Now, these families own land that they rent to westerners, they have their own guesthouses, boat trips tours, etc. The family that own the guesthouse I work at now has 3 business running on Koh Rong, 1 more they are renting, one business on Mpay Bay and one on the making in Saracen Bay. I am sure that if you asked them, they would say they are better off now than they were before tourist came. I am not saying that tourism does not have negative effect on locals but it had in this case many positive effects too. If truly you wanted to know, you would stay away from the k spider a bit and sit with the many people here that are not fucked up at all times. All of us will agree that this article is rather entertaining, i do love how the bars and islanders that you met were easily recognizable even if not named. You could have skipped writing the year, we could have guesses it! But don't talk about what you do not know. Don't write that a backpacker was attacked on long beach if you do not know the story, because it was not a backpacker. Don't write that the kids here have a worst live that they did before because they don't. Don't pretend your article is more than an exaggerated entertaining tales because that's what it is. You say you had a fun time here but yet your article makes everyone that you met look like a fuck up or trashy moron.





Koh Rong is a community. Communities around the world have their ups and down, their positives and negatives and are influenced by tourism. Our island is a home for Cambodians and westerners because migration is beautiful and our world is here to be shared. The children living on the island are now able to read, write and speak two languages. These are all vital skills required to survive in this world and something a huge amount of the worlds population takes for granted. These skills have only been learnt through the hard work and dedication of Western volunteers, yes volunteers. The medical center was set up by westerners and the local expats are the only form of funding for this essential life line providing free medical care to anyone in need and again let me stress, by volunteers. Our bars/guest houses provide our Cambodian brothers and sisters with a good quality of life filled with happiness, safety and security. I have lived on the island for three years and it is my home and will be for a long time to come. We work alongside the local community, we are all the local community. We provide love, support and no judgement to each other and have all grown far more than I ever expect you are capable of. Perhaps if you partied a little more in you life you would be able to pull that stick out of your backside. Look at the whole picture. Think before you write. This is our home. If you didn't like it then leave it at that but perhaps in the future try not to go out of your way to potentially ruin the lively hoods of your fellow human beings.





Your community's sense of entitlement and white savior complex are difficult to handle. And that's without going into the personal attacks and general bullshit some of you have been spewing.

If you have anything to add please do so in the comments section of the article. I will not censor any of it. I will not DEMAND that you remove your comments, even if I could erase them at the push of a button.

I wrote what I wrote and I did my best trying to give you a chance to tell your side of the story. I wouldn't have posted to this group otherwise.

It needs to be clear that this is not something I owe you.

But, very much unlike most of you, I am unafraid of debate, and I stand by what I do and what I say, regardless of its consequences. I believe this is called integrity.

You don't own the narrative of Koh Rong, and you shouldn't censor voices in dissonance with yours, or what happened in the past.

However, you can object, and I invite you to do so constructively with the tools available to you.

Thank you for all the feedback. Bye.
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Dermadone223344
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Re: Spiralling Down the Rabbit Hole Of Paradise Lost and Ketamine Spiders

Post by Dermadone223344 »

Please be careful
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