Ban Lung

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Ban Lung is in the very northeast of Cambodia in the province of Ratanakiri. It's a bit of a nightmare to get to but thankfully we had halfed the pain by stopping in Kratie for a couple of nights. There are two ways to get to Ban Lung. You can travel 8 people to a Toyota Camry which is fine if your of average Cambodian size but not ideal for us. The other option is to take a very crappy and old yet hardy bus along the dismal dirt track. We went with the second option although we are not quite sure we made the right decision.

Ronan spent the journey holding up the back of the chair in front (which had fallen off) and leg room was at something of a premium. Still we had to admire the buses grit in dealing with some of the worst dirt tracks of the trip so far. After 7 hours we exited the bus suffering from cramp, stiffness and aching butts but none the worse for wear.

We headed for the Lakeside Guesthouse (Once the French Provincial Governers House apparently) which had been recommended to us in Kratie. Unfortunately the recommendation was a poor one. With no rooms available the manager gave up his own bedroom. After tossing a coin Ronan got the bed and Ciaran a mattress on the floor. To say the room had some interesting wildlife would be an understatement and we quickly decided to put up our mosquito nets.

One uncomfortable night later we asked the manager to sort out some drivers to the local waterfalls and bus tickets to Phnom Penh. He told us we were too late to get a driver (i.e. anyone who would pay him his percentage) so we resolved to try and find our own. That took all of 5 minutes in town where rows of them were lined up.

We negotiated a price with two of the drivers and headed off out the road. The dust on the road was incredibile and we were soon a deep "Tan in the can" orange colour from head to foot. We visited three different beautiful waterfalls Chaa Ong, Ka Tieng and Kinchaa and were able to swim by ourselves in two of them which was amazing.

After that we headed to Beong Yeak Laom Crater a prefectly cyndrical lake the locals believe was formed by a meteor. We spent two and a half hours swimming in the warm water before heading back to our guesthouse.

On arrival back we were informed that there was still no room in the actual guesthouse but we were moving to a slightly better room. When the manager explained that he had forgotten to book the bus our blood boiled over and we soon had him on a moto into town. He returned a little later telling us we were lucky as he had got the last two tickets as we tried not hit him. Not our best guesthouse experience of the trip.

Next Stop Phnom Penh again...

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Photos

This Doesnt Look Good
The Bus To Ban Lung

MacGyver Has Nothing On Us
Some ingenuity required to get our mosquito nets up.