We are currently working with the community tourism chief Mr. Bun Ban to create a cohesive network of signs for the island. We aim to identify the 'top sights', have k.m. markers for the main circuit, direction signs where needed, a new large map, and later on some information on the sights and island life.
As a test we painted k.m. 'beach' signs to look at the colour combinations. We are using the only type of paint available in the whole of Kratie, which is a high gloss enamel, great for metal but not so easy to use on wood! The wood we are using is salvaged boards that are used in cladding the houses here.
We met with Mr. Bun Ban again once these initial signs were completed and it was fantastic to see how pleased he was with them so far. During the time we were painting them we had daily visitors, young and old all showing real interest in what we were doing. It was only once we had written the Khmer under 'beach' that the work was fully understood. The Khmer script actually reads "beach of the river Mekong" as "beach" in itself doesn't translate correctly.
The colour chosen for us to use throughout was green as it related to eco-toursim and we learnt a valuable lesson regarding the lettering. It is required by the government that all signs must have the English script positioned after the Khmer so it's lucky that we didn't proceed as we had started. We'll also use the correct Khmer abbreviation for 'k.m.' on the new signs.
So we now have 7 location sights, 7 direction arrows, and four K.M. signs to create. These so far have all been cut and the backgrounds painted green. We'll show the progress in further updates.
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