Somewhere between Vox & Hunter S. Thompson
Viewing entries in
NGOs
Mumbai's Kamathipura is the oldest red-light district on the Indian subcontinent, and is the 2nd largest on the entire continent of Asia. The 1st largest is Calcutta, which is something that I didn’t realize when I was actually there. If I had we probably would have paid it a visit, like we're about to do in Mumbai.
Normally I’m not a fan of volunteer tourism. I don’t think it does much good beyond making the volunteer feel like a charitable person. But when I was planning my trip to Dhaka, I knew that it was going to be really hard to have an enriching or positive interaction with Bangladesh if I didn’t find some sort of something to plug in with.
What I found was JAAGO.
During one of my rainy days in Sa Pa, one of the hostel workers told me about an organization that had just been initiated that allowed foreigners the chance to have a question and answer session with former Viet Cong soldiers, and interact with children who were growing up with disabilities caused by Agent Orange. I was beyond excited to hear that such an organization existed. This was going to be the real deal.
Going to Cambodia is a lot like going to a strip club – you better arrive with a fat stack of ones. Trip Advisor ranked Siem Reap as the #1 destination in Asia last year. The Khmer new year was just 2 weeks ago and Siem Reap apparently received roughly 300,000 international visitors in addition to 1,000,000 domestic visitors (in that week alone) who all came to take part in the giant party that was being held in Angkor Wat and the surrounding temple complexes.
