by Ian | Dec 18, 2016 | Cambodia 2016
There aren’t many things in the world that are worth waking up at 4:00am for, but after visiting the Angkor temples, we can say this is definitely one of them!
We left the Tropical Breeze Guest House at 4:30am in a fleet of tuk tuks driven by a Mr Lucky, Mr Im and Mr Bothan, who would be taking us to the temple ruins that lay hidden in the jungle.
Our journey was short, with only a quick stop to purchase our day passes for the temples, before leaving the city and tarmac behind for dirt tracks running through dense jungle. We passed wide rivers that reflected the early morning sky that was starting to shine as we reached the first, and most famous of the temples, Angkor Wat.
Everybody was excited to see the sun rise over the black silhouette of Angkor Wat, so we hurried to a nearby ruin close to the main path, giving us a great view of the temple. As the sun began to rise, we were amazed by what we were seeing. It is impossible to describe how incredible the view was!
After taking many photos, we moved inside the temple to explore the impressive and world famous sand stone, which was decorated with detailed engravings. Reaching the top of the temple, I was particularly amazed by the panoramic view we had of the temple’s courtyard and the infinite jungle that surrounded it, which was tainted by the golden glow of the rising sun.
Leaving Angkor Wat was very different to how we first entered it, with the sun now revealing the surrounding areas, filled with stalls selling similar souvenirs to that of the Night Market.
Mr Lucky and his associates took us to two other temples, the first of which was Bayon. This temple was a smaller site than Angkor Wat, but was still just as detailed and intricate as the previous. The second temple, Ta Prohm, was covered in trees and scaffolding, which supported the 12th century structure from the hundreds of years of erosion. This temple was perhaps the most crowded, due to it’s co-starring role with Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider film.
Visiting a number of smaller temples during the morning, we saw a glimpse of the 
wildlife that lived in the jungles of Cambodia, including a Gibbon, some parrots (we think they were parrots) and elephants that were carrying tourists to temples. Whilst the elephants may not have been the happiest mammals alive, they gave us hope that we would see one during the jungle trek.
Visiting this world heritage site today has definitely been the highlight of the expedition so far and the whole team is excited to see what Cambodia has for us next, in Battambang…
Kenneth.
by Ian | Dec 17, 2016 | Cambodia 2016
During HSX’s time in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The team has been working at the Children Development Organisation (CDO). This is an organisation that accommodates, feeds and educates Cambodian children, many of which have lost both their parents, from the ages of 3-16.
The HSX team has been working improving the standard of the current site. This was tricky at first as a strong language barrier is put in front of us. Matt, Kenneth, Ed and Bradley made easy work of a path that need care and attention. Claire, Becky, Anna, Cerys were on paint fences duty. Whilst Liam and Rosemary started planning their biology lesson focusing on body parts for Liam and the organ systems was Rosemary’s topic.
A major task was given to us late on the second day of constructing a drainage system from the Kitchen area to the roadside, 
approximately 100 metres. Matt was chief conductor of Team Dig. With his background in Engineering, Construction work and Product Management the Team was in safe hands and in good spirits.
The tools we were using were basic, inefficient and low in abundance. As a lasting donation we have donated a new shovel and pick axe. Operation Trench was working well, then the rain came down. Matt’s face when he walks into the compound seeing the high level of water in the trench was one to be framed. However, this did soften the ground and progress increased and Mr Prince was smiling again. Over time Team Dig dug further, deeper and modified their master piece to an impressive feit of engineering which will hopefully improve conditions for the children during times of heavy rain.
Another task included cutting and bending metal rods into squares. These are used to make the internal frame of walls for the 
new site. This is hard work made easy by 8-year-old boys, however the HSX team struggled at first in the heat but soon reached the high level of competence the production line needed. Liam and Cerys setting the record of metal squares at a grand total of 16 in 5mins.
Painting the wooden framing of the kitchen area was task 3 on the ever growing and never ending list of jobs that need to be completed. Over here pain is mixed with gasoline to thin the paint making it last longer. This was completed in good time.
The project is hoping to move to new land in the next year. The Dry season is needed before any foundations can be laid and as we have some fairly heavy 
showers this construction has been delayed.
Sunday is our final day at the CDO. To finish we will be running different sports for the children to play in. Football is a huge interest here with all the boys having big aspersions of being as good as their hero’s Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar.
The HSX team has really enjoyed our time with the CDO and hopes we have made a lasting difference.
Ed.
by Ian | Dec 12, 2016 | Cambodia 2016
After the longest journey in the world; complete with 2 flights, 3 buses, and 3 foreign countries, we are finally at our destination.
We’ve fallen in love with the food here (it’s good food compared to the plane meals), especially the great rice. Cerys in particular is in love with the hotel orange juice, which she describes as “like drinking gold”. 
We spent yesterday in Thailand, stepping off the plane into 33oC heat which is apparently “very mild weather.” Bangkok was incredible; the city was the perfect blend of urban glory melded with nature. Some of the businesses advertised their clients on the windows, including Cheryl Cole, David Beckham, Zac Efron, and the entire Chelsea football team. We’re sure they’re regulars. Our evening meal was great, finished off with magical entertainment by Max the Magician who assured us was better than dynamo – to his credit, he was. To end the day, we went for an evening swim in the hotel pool under a beautiful purple sky. The water was colder than expected, but the warm air and breath-holding-competitions more than made up for it.
Despite the 2am awakening and jet lag, we set off at 9:30 in good spirits. (Becky got her fix of coffee that she’d been craving 
since England. For lunch, just before the Cambodian border, we stopped at the (surprisingly amazing) Tesco food court and had great meals despite the language barrier and squat toilets.
Crossing into Cambodia was as hectic as playing chicken run blindfolded – “an experience and a half”. Nothing beats carrying a heavy bag across busy streets in midday heat!! We all got across happily and safely; we could finally celebrate being in Cambodia! The remaining bus journey was complete with a culture talk from our host – he taught us about the religion, as well as some key phrases that I won’t even try to spell here.
This evening we walked around the Siem Reap Night Market, and now have the urge to buy all of the cool and colourful things. We can’t wait to go back there this week. Tomorrow, we start the community project – building the orphanage nearby.
We hope you’re all good back home, even if your weather is worse than ours (we’re writing this from a hammock under a perfect breeze).
Love from Team Cambodia
by Ian | Nov 2, 2016 | Cambodia 2016
After meeting at our usual haunts, we headed north towards Birmingham in traffic which was steady for a Friday evening. Excited about what the weekend in Snowdonia would entail and enjoying catching up with each other, we settled down for the long journey ahead, refueling at a motorway MacDonalds along the way.
Team Cambodia was excited for a weekend of team building, scrambling and navigation in the National Park of Snowdonia. Meanwhile, the weekend in North Wales was a great opportunity for Team Patagonia to get to acquaint themselves with the new members of the team and meet a few more members of HSX. Arriving close to midnight, Team Patagonia and Liam, who had to sleep outside due to a lack of beds, set up their tents and headed to bed, whilst the rest of the contingent moved into the comfort of the bunk houses, equipped with heating!
Breakfast was to be ready at 7:30am and Team Patagonia, who had endured a windy night outside in the tents, knocked up some delicious sausage sandwiches. Unfortunately, there was no ketchup!! Liam was unlucky to have a small leak in his tent which resulted in some of his kit getting wet, but the group still needed to get ready for an 8:00am departure for the day’s activities.
Team Cambodia, led by Matt and Steve traveled a short car journey to the base of Tryfan where they would walk and scramble most of the way to the summit up the East Face. We navigated along the Heather Terrace until we found Nor’ Nor’ Gully, which Ed, Becky, Tom and Steve would scramble up. Meanwhile, Cerys, Bradley and myself were led by Matt and we used the Little and North Gullies to ascend the mountain. The routes provided some challenges and were very useful in teaching us how to spot each other as we made our way up the gullies, but Steve still had to use his rope to help Tom in Nor’ Nor’ Gully when he couldn’t quite get to the next part of the scramble. We met at the top for lunch and began the descent as a group with both care and some pace, because Steve wanted to go shopping at Betws-Y-Coed.
Team Cambodia cooked dinner Saturday night, which was chilli con carne with rice and cheesecake for pudding which everybody enjoyed. The choice of the evening’s entertainment was either a talk in Betws-Y-Coed about a canoeing trip in Canada or some night navigation with Liam to help him with his mountain leader assessment in a few weekends time. Whilst many preferred to not go on the night navigation, those who did said they had an enjoyable experience using the bright reflection of the moon.
On the Sunday after a slightly wetter night’s sleep, Team Cambodia cooked bacon sandwiches for breakfast at 7:30am as the group slowly woke up for a day of activities in the rain and wind. We were going to do some navigation around 
Tryfan and set off at 8:00am as the rain began to pour down. Fortunately, as the day progressed the sky began to clear as we manoeuvred ourselves across the damp terrain which was slippery underfoot. As a group our navigation was working well, until Ed navigated his right foot into hole causing him to hurt his ankle. As Ed needed to use walking poles to be able to walk, we decided it would be best to head back down the path towards the van. Although Ed had hurt himself, I think we were all glad to be getting out of the wind and heading back to the bunk houses to pack up and head home.
The drive back to Hampshire was an opportunity for some members of the weekend to fall asleep in the car after a busy two days of scrambling, walking and navigating, but the drivers had to battle fatigue and tiredness all the way home. Rosemary found some relief in popcorn chicken at a KFC when we stopped at a service station to refuel ourselves, before continuing until we reached the car park of Tesco in Winnal.
This was Team Cambodia’s last training weekend prior to the final packing and information day before our departure. It is hard to believe that thirteen months ago we all met for the first time at Ferny Crofts in the New Forest. In this time we have been to Wales three times, the Lake District, Swanage and Ferny Crofts twice, whilst fundraising £3500 each. We have learn’t lots of technical skills, developed as individuals, increased our knowledge of fundraising, but most importantly created a strong and highly motivated expedition team who are now ready to take on 4 weeks in Cambodia. We know that we speak on behalf of everyone else, and would like to say a huge thank you not just to our expedition leaders, but to all those in HSX who have helped throughout our thirteen months of training. It is not long now until the 9th of December, the day we leave, and the next few weeks we are sure will fly by. We are all really looking forward to the relief of getting on the plane knowing we are on our way, although alongside the excitement there will certainly be some nerves.
On an earlier training weekend to Wales we climbed Cadair Idris, which if you read the blog post for the trip, it made reference to Led Zeppelin gaining inspiration for their classic song Stairway To Heaven. We all agree that these two lines from this song sum up how we feel now ‘There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west, and my spirit is crying for leaving’.
by Ian | Sep 22, 2016 | Cambodia 2016
September weekend this year, as always, proved to be a very interesting one. Not only as it marked that we are near the end of our training with now just two weekends left before departure, but for the first time since joining HSX, team Cambodia wasn’t the new expedition team!! With Chris Slater and his team launching the Patagonia Expedition a few months earlier, we were eager to befriend them (who were great) and share all our experiences and knowledge from our training with them.
We started the weekend at the small climbing wall at Ferny Crofts Scout Activity Centre, and were taught a selection 
of new climbing skills. For me, this was the highlight of the weekend, building on our knowledge from other weekends but now progressing our development into now teaching other people…! First of all we had to set up a climb without any idea or instruction of what to do, which went surprisingly well; following some slight cheating by looking at one that was already set up (Cough Cough). After climbing on our ground anchor set-ups, we went abseiling, learning how to lower someone down and then how to ascend ropes. Next was lunch and homemade Pizza’s, I’m not sure Rosemary had anticipated our level of excitement or potential mess when she planned this…. But it was great fun and some were more successful than others to say the least.
The afternoon was spent doing a selection of admin task. The team had our first aid training, we’re now thoroughly prepared for any situation, having run through muggings, emergencies, end of the world type scenarios, and of course, the runs. It was really nice to go through every part of the trip, looking at our hotels and flight times, because it made the whole thing more real. Less than 3 months to go!
It turns out that perseverance pays off, because in the evening we got out of a climbing film (to Matt’s disappointment!) in favor of watching Magic Mike. Despite the dodgy camera angles and obvious small budget, it was a good film (made better by Cerys’ immense knowledge), possibly highlighted by several older HSX members re-enacting certain scenes throughout the film.
To make up for our film choice, the older members of HSX did get us back with a brisk session of PT first thing on the Sunday morning; great fun if you feel like dying and being dead. We ran until we reached the river at Ipley Bridge, along the way doing a mixture of sprint intervals and 50% effort intervals. Once at the river (I’m sure you can guess whats next) we all went in; some needed more encouragement than others, to do squats and then under the bridge. Running back up the road it was just a case of surviving, our team was the image of perfect health; I was wheezing, Anna pushed herself enough to almost puke, and Cerys was half dead from a chest infection.
As well as Daniel Heatons Birthday (he loved the Frozen themed cake) on the Sunday it was also Happy Birthday to HSX, celebrating the 30th anniversary. Joined by members past and present, it was inspiring for us to see how it all started and the journey it has been on to become the HSX that we have known over the last year. We had a BBQ expertly cooked by Kenneth and Ed, which was greatly enjoyed by everyone, and after an emotional speech by the man that started it all; Russ Parke, we had the biggest birthday cake for everyone. It was a perfect end to a great weekend.
by Tilly | Sep 8, 2016 | Cambodia 2016, Event Report, Expeditions, Media, News, Patagonia 2017, Patagonia 2017, Team HSX, Training, Trip Report
” I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”
“I should think so- in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things! Make you later for dinner, I can’t think what anybody sees in them.”
Unlike Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, who is dead set against any kind of exploration or adventure, it is clear that HSX members have adventure running through their core.
Last weekend HSX celebrated the 30 year milestone,
That’s 30 years of leading, participating, and developing life changing adventures all around the world.
30 Spectacular years.
The weekend followed our normal September plan, a training weekend at Ferny Crofts, this year we had two current expedition teams in attendance, Cambodia, which are heading off this winter 2016 for 4 weeks, and Patagonia, a team heading off next winter 2017 to Chile. The expedition teams took part in their own programmes, some PT, first aid training and continuous team building were all on the cards. Those who were left also took part training, on how to lead expeditions, running events, learn about budgets etc…All of that exciting stuff.
On Sunday we had a classic big BBQ and were joined by HSX members from the past, who with them bought an exchange of stories and photos that have not seen the light for many, many years.
It was a great afternoon, where the newer members and current expeditions could see where HSX started and came from, and the older members from previous expeditions could see that the sense of adventure is still as strong as it ever was.
Even though we are 30 years old, we feel like we are just getting started, we have a fantastic future ahead, with more adventures, more expeditions and more exciting plans on the horizon.
Somewhere in the story, Bilbo decides that actually, an adventure can be quite exciting, he wishes to see the great mountains, smell the pine trees and hear the waterfalls, ultimately his sense of adventure is overpowered so sets of on a journey.
We still have a journey to complete, and a story to tell.
Thank you to everyone who has ever played any part in our adventures.
Here’s to another, spectacular 30 years.
Leaving Angkor Wat was very different to how we first entered it, with the sun now revealing the surrounding areas, filled with stalls selling similar souvenirs to that of the Night Market.
wildlife that lived in the jungles of Cambodia, including a Gibbon, some parrots (we think they were parrots) and elephants that were carrying tourists to temples. Whilst the elephants may not have been the happiest mammals alive, they gave us hope that we would see one during the jungle trek. 
