Tipping Point

How often have you heard on the news that "this flooding cannot be attributed to climate change"?

Well this is very misleading, and implies that the flooding was not caused by climate change. Actually, no single weather event can be attributed to climate change.

This is because climate is the trend of weather events, so for us to find out if human-induced long-term climate change is occurring we need many years of records to show that there are increased incidences of extreme flood events or tropical cyclones. Even with meteorological records since the 70s it is difficult to decipher the long term trend due to climatic oscillations that occur on decadal and sub-decadal cycles (such as the El Nino - La Nina cycle).

(There are also many other factors which affect the severity of flooding in the UK. Urbanisation and deforestation both lead to an increase in flooding, and of course flood events appear more severe when those houses that have been built on a floodplain are inevitably flooded.)

Bit of a while since my last post because since I've been back in the UK it has been non-stop sorting my life out!

I experienced my first bit of corruption in Cambodia 10 minutes after getting off the plane. We had to pay twenty dollars for the tourist visa and had to provide a photo for them to have. I only had a photocopy of my passport photo, which should have been fine for whatever purpose they needed it for, since they take an electronic photo of you anyway, but he tried to fine me I think 100 ringit firstly, and then when I said I no longer had ringit he wanted me to pay him 5 dollars. You can tell as soon as they start changing the price that it isnt an official fine, so I just stared at him blankly until he told me to move onto the next counter. I've found that whether on purpose or not the blank stare works a treat when travelling!

We stayed in the Shadow of Angkor guesthouse where we had a double bed each and free internet access, and bizarrely it had a restaurant selling great european food, I had some great hummus and pitta! Lots of people seem to hire bikes to go round all the temples, but having just been trekking for a few days, and Lisa with a twisted ankle we hired a tuk tuk for the 3 days we were there.

We saw A LOT of temples. I had expected them to feel more spiritual but there were so many tourists around that it was difficult to appreciate them for their religious significance. The ones I enjoyed the most were the ones we saw earliest in the morning when no-one else was around. There were also some that had been left in ruins with enormous trees growing out of the stone, it was an impressive example of nature versus structure.

In terms of their architecture it is an interesting comparison between that going on in Europe at a similar time. I think the European cathedrals have much more impressive structures, perhaps as a result of advanced engineering skills, but there was no denying how beautiful the carvings were on the temples.

On our last day we were taking photos of the South Gate to Angkor Thom and Lisa was bitten by a monkey who didn't like the look of her, so we also got to experience a Cambodian hospital! Getting bitten on holiday is highly unrecommended due to the amount of rabies jabs you need after!

Bangkok Airways is the only airline to fly between Siem Reap and Bangkok, and their flights would have cost a lot so we decided to travel by coach instead. Apparantly they bribe the Cambodian government to not improve the road between Siem Reap and the border to make people travel by plane, so during the rainy season the roads are in really poor condition. Unfortunately we were there in rainy season, and it had rained heavily during our stay, so our journey to the border was particularly uncomfortable.