Around the World with Mr Palmer

Mr. Palmer used to be a teacher at Harry Carlton before deciding to take a year out to travel the world. Read below to see how he is getting on.

Monday 17th November

Sabaai-dii, (which is hello in Laos) to all the Staff and Students at Harry Carlton.

This is the latest installment of Mr Palmer’s travel diary. Well from Australia we traveled to Thailand and I spent my birthday on the island of Ko Sameet. From there we headed to the island of Ko Chang and the Village of Bang Bao. The Village is all built on stilts and I stayed in an amazing guest house over looking the sea. While there I tried scuba diving and saw a huge amount of marine life. I also took an elephant trek through the surrounding jungle. After a hot morning I then swam and washed the elephants, which made for an interesting swimming lesson!!

From Thailand I entered the country of Cambodia. 30 years ago the country was the scene of a terrible genocide, committed by the rebel leader Pol Pot, in which almost 1.5 million people were killed (ask Mr Renshaw for further historical details)!!  I stayed in a quiet little place called Kampot (which is famous for pepper) and did some voluntary work at a local school. The school was quite a shock. No toilet, running water and defiantly no sports facilities or ICT rooms (Mr Motler you would be out of a job)!!! My final class of the day was certainly different as it was teaching English to a group of young Buddhist Monks.

From Kampot I moved south to Kep. This was once a very grand playground for the rich and famous during Pol Pots dictatorship but after he was over thrown in the 1980’s many of the grand building we deserted and burned down. I arrived in the Capital Phnom Penh and visited the Ton Sleng museum which was once the notorious S-21 Prison during Pol Pots reign. Phnom Penh is a great city and whilst there the King was celebrating his Birthday so the whole city was lit up.

My next destination was Siem Reap the stop off point to visit the famous temples of Ankor. This is where Angelina Jolie shot the tomb raider film. The temples were truly amazing and the sunrise over the most famous of the temples, Ankor Wat, was breath taking (getting up at 4am was not fun though)!! On my last day in Cambodia I took a cookery course, (Mrs Fox you would be proud)!! I was taken by the chef in a tuk tuk, which is a motor bike with a cart attached to the back, to the local market and then taught how to make a banana flower salad and a fish Amok curry (which I then ate for lunch)!!

I have now arrived in the country of Laos and have had 3 very peaceful days in a town called Pakse and am planning to stay on an island on the Mekong river called Don Kong! 

Hope the new half term is going well.

Best wishes

Mr Palmer

Read below for previous updates and photos.

we finally reached the magical city of the lost incas at Macchu picchu, it was amazing!! From Peru we made our way to Bolivia (one of South America's poorest countries). Our first stop was at lake Titicaca (the worlds largest lake).

From there we moved onto La Paz which is a crazy city at 3700 metres surrounded by snow capped mountains. We hopped on a plane and flew to the amazon jungle and spent 4 days being watched by alligators (they were huge), searching for snakes, fishing fishing for Piranhas and I even took a dip in the amazon river (which felt weird). We then went on a 4 day tour of the salt flats in the south of bolivia and stayed in villages completely cut off from the

chile) and sampled some lovely cakes and delicious coffee.

Having spent 4 months in South America it was time to leave. What an amazing place it is and I would highly recommend it.

And that has been the trip so far, an amazing experience and we have met some brilliant people from all over the world.
 
I'll keep everyone updated as we are moving on to Asia in a few days.

Best Wishes
 
Mr Palmer.