Day 84: Banlung

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Ban lung is the biggest town in the rattanakiri province, which is up in the north eastern corner of cambodia. It has paved streets but even so it is a very dusty town. A layer of red dust covers just about everything. It is also a bit out of the way, but it is pretty unique and we are definitely glad we made it up there.

The bus from Kratie went pretty smoothly. As I mentioned in the last blog, we saw the dolphins in the morning and then got on the 1 pm bus. We had to switch buses at one point when the road forked to stung treng, and after that it was a 3 hour, very bumpy dirt road. Lots of cut down trees on the way there. It took 6 hours to get there from Kratie, and it was well after dark by that time. Getting off the bus in Banlung we were assaulted by a group of 10 or 15 moto drivers. We found one guy that was holding a sign for a guest house we recognized from the lonely planet and he was very happy that we had chosen him out of the crowd. He introduced himself as Makara. I got on the back of his motorbike, and steph got on his friend's. To ride a moto taxi the driver has to put your big backpack up between his legs, and you have to have your small pack on your back. My bag is pretty big, and Makara was tiny (much shorter than steph) so it was a pretty funny arrangement. Both Makara and his friend (forgot his name) were pretty funny, and by the time they got us to our hotel we agreed to use them as our tour guides for the next day.

The next day we went to three waterfalls and the crater lake, all of which were really cool in their own way. The first waterfall was not very tall, but you could walk behind it. I'd always wanted to do this so I was pretty excited. We ended up walking behind the waterfall and then crossing the river to get back. The water was rushing pretty good, and steph actually lost her sunglasses, but other than that we made it ok. The second waterfall was a bit taller and had a nice pool to swim in. I got in but steph did not.... she should have though because her face was covered in red dirt from the motorbike. She took care of it at the 3rd waterfall though. The third one was cool because you could walk behind it, but it wasn't too powerful so you could get under the water also. It hurt a bit because it was a tall waterfall, but we got some of the grime off riding on the back of the bikes. There were a bunch of cambodian tourists there and we ended up in a photoshoot until they all had pictures with us. After lunch we went to the crater lake for a swim. Fun day.

On the second day we decided to rent our own motorbike and do some exploring of our own. I went with Makara to go get a bike and helmet, and then picked up steph for our ride. In the morning we rode towards the same area as the first two waterfalls, and kept going once we'd passed them. We got a bit lost in some of the farms (mainly all cashews and rubber trees) but we made it out eventually. Some of the dirt roads were pretty crazy - not really meant for a 50cc motorbike but oh well. Steph tried driving for a few minutes, but we decided I should be the designated driver for the rest of the trip after that. She needs practice. Somehow we found our way down a back road to ban lung for lunch before heading out again for more of the same - getting lost driving on roads our bike was not meant to go on. Good times.

The next three days and two nights we did a trek through the jungle. Makara was our guide again, along with a "ranger" from one of the local minority villages. He seemed just like a regular kid to us. But he did speak both cambodian and the minority language. So if steph or I wanted to talk to one of the local minority people, we'd have to talk to Makara to translate it to cambodian, so he could talk to the ranger to translate it to the minority language, before he could tell the minority person. So theoretically it would have been possible to strike up a (very long and painful) conversation with the minorities. We never really got around to it though.

The first day we started in the morning and hiked until maybe 3 or 4 in the afternoon before setting up camp next to a stream. The stream had a really nice swimming hole with a vine to swing in, which was pretty fun. After it got dark I went fishing (hunting?) with Makara and the ranger. We caught a small frog, 5 small crabs and maybe 6 very small river prawns. Later Makara threw them all on the fire, and he and the ranger ate it all - bones, shells, guts - ate it all. I've never seen anyone eat a WHOLE crab, let alone a whole frog. I didn't have any. That night we slept in hammocks, which was actually pretty comfortable except it got pretty cold that night and we didn't have any blankets. Ban lung gets a lot colder than it had gotten in Kratie or siem reap.

The next day of the trek we hiked from our camp site to a minority village. As we hiked we saw more and more evidence of humans, passing areas that had been recently logged, until we were hiking through farms of cashew trees and past scattered huts. We made it to the village well before dark, and went to the "bamboo shower" to clean up a bit. It ended up being a stream that fed a common shower area with a bunch of naked little kids, men and women (luckily covered up). We washed our faces but stopped there. After that Makara took us around the village to see how they live. Pretty rustic - no running water or electricity. Girls can marry as young as 13. All of the farmer men hang out under their houses drinking rice wine every evening after they get back from their farms. Pretty different.

The final day of the we hiked back to where we started. By this time both steph and I had noticed the lack of wildlife we had seen. There were almost no birds, no mammals to speak of... mostly just bugs. And two frogs, one of which got eaten. I'm wondering if all the logging has scared away the animals. No bueno. Also on the way back, Makara cut down a small tree in order to get a vine that he ended up throwing away. No tip for Makara, after that.

Makara had the last laugh, though. Even after the tree incident we bought our bus tickets to phnom penh the next day through Makara, and he told us he would pick us up at 6:25 am for the 6:30 bus. At 6:35 he still wasn't there so we had to hire our own moto drivers to take us to the bus station. For anyone reading this, if you meet someone named Makara in Ban Lung, tell him they owe gabe and steph 50 cents.

So all in all ban lung was a good experience, especially the waterfalls. Trekking was fun but it could have been better. There is a national park north of ban lung which hopefully has less logged areas and more animals. Here's a few pictures:

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[Matt Potterton]

Holy spider
I hate spiders.....