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Published: March 20th 2009
After another uneventful journey to Kompong Cham we were dropped off and immediately swamped by moto drivers all keen to 'help' us. As we'd decided not to stay here and literally just stop overnight to use the ATM we went straight to the bus company office we'd come on to ask about onward travel for the following day to our new chosen destination of Mondolkiri Province. Sadly Ratanakiri had been knocked out as we didn't think we'd have enough time to spend there and these days we'd rather not visit somewhere at all than make a flying visit of it and wish we had longer. Sophie was a little put out when she was told that the ticket would be $13, especially as she'd read that a ticket from Phnom Penh was only $10 so how could it posisbly be more when we were a 1/4 of the way there already? We declined to purchase the overpriced ticket and decided to drop off our bags and search out for an alternative company in our one afternoon in this town.
On route to find a guesthouse we were approached by one of those ever helpful moto drivers who told us that
if we went to his friends guesthouse we could get a bus ticket for just $9 and the room would be $4.. we liked the sound of this so made our way there, booked our room (prison cell) for that night and the bus ticket for the following day and felt pretty pleased with ourselves that we had paid a better price even if the bus wasn't going to be air conditioned.. we had a fan so we felt that we'd survive!
First stop was to get some food and we were a little too excited to find that the cafe next to our guesthouse was owned by a English man who served up the most gorgeous huge tuna salad baguettes... honestly people at home won't believe how much of a treat it is to find things like this that actually taste pretty much the same as they do at home and we savoured every bite. Next stop was the ATM where we breathed a sigh of relief to be stocked up on $$'s again ready for our adventure to the Wild East the following day. We didn't really do Kompong Cham any justice in it's sights of which
there are many and spent the afternoon sitting under our fan having a cat nap, watching tv and sheltering from the opressive heat.
So to the following day which is one we will never ever forget as long as we both shall live...
We were up in good time to catch our 08.30 bus to Sen Monorum wondering whether it really was a good idea to be stingy and go for the cheap seats in the non-air conditioned bus or not seeing as it was only early morning and we were already breaking out into a sweat. Our guesthouse manager and his friend very kindly dropped us off at the bus stop on their motos which was a result, it was here when we learnt from the bus lady that our bus had broken down and instead of a bus we would be going on the 7 hour journey to Sen Mororum on a pickup. Always the optomists(?!) we actually looked forward to this and decided that this would be quite fun and at least we wouldn't have to worry about the stifling heat as it would be open air so we'd be fine. We'd seen lots of
pickups on our adventures and although we'd seen many that were clearly overloaded with both people & bags we felt confident that they wouldn't put white people on one of these and had images of us sitting on the benches undercover at worst or in one of the minivans at the very best.
So we waited.... and waited... our bus was supposed to leave at 08.30 and we were assured at approximately 10 minute intervals that our transport was on it's way.. for 3 hours! We were not alone though as we had been joined with another German couple and a Thai couple too. Eventually our transport arrived and we couldn't believe it... what had turned up was a pickup alright.. a pickup that was already loaded up to the hilt with bags of god knows what but also the inside seats were full up and there were already 6 people on the top of the 2m2 space where we were informed our seats were waiting! It was one of those moments when you know it's the wrong thing to get on and a million images of what might happen if you do run though your head but the
other half of you thinks 'this will make such a cool story for those back home if we make it to the end!' So on we got!
To say that the 8 hour journey there was fun would probably be a bit of a lie.. actually a lot of a lie! An experience would be more accurate and we can honestly say that now we know how the local people travel because we've done it too! Sophie just kept thinking of all those times when the packed pickups had passed and she'd pointed out that if there was an accident then all the people hanging on for their lives on top would be squished.. and now it was them in this position. Sophie got a great spot on top of the roof while dale got a 'window' seat on the side with his only way to stay on being to hang on for dear life.
As we say our ordeal lasted for 8 hours, 7 of which was spent on the road with the other 1 hour being much needed rest stops to get the feeling into our dead limbs. During these 7 hours we endured speeds of
up to 100km/h and suffered sunburn from not having adequate clothing for riding al fresco, both these were bad enough but the real test began when we left the tarmac road behind and started on what can only be described as the off road section of our journey. For those people who have been to Cambodia you will be aware that the soil here is red, much like in central Australia. If you are not inside a vehicle that has some kind of protection against this red soil then you too end up being .. RED! For 3 hours we sheltered as best we could under our scarves from the dust storm that surrounded us everytime a vehicle went past in the other direction until every part of our exposed flesh and clothing was covered in dust and the original colour could not be seen. As if this was not bad enough another test was put on us as the heavens opened and we were left looking like weird streaked tigers, that was until we went though another dust storm and were completely covered again! And so it went on... we are obviously pleased to say we lived to tell
the tale and arrived in Sen Monorum a little worse for wear but still alive and having made some fun Cambodian lady friends along the way.
So to our time in Sen Mororum where we had high hopes for trekking, elephant watching, tiger spotting (yes they do live here apparently) and Pnong People meeting. Unfortunately this town is another one on the up and coming area in Cambodia so we found it quite frustrating to get any information on what activities there are to do here unless you want to go elephant trekking.. which we really didn't want to do. This frustration was made worse when we went to visit the people in the tourist information office, described in the LP as 'very helpful English & French speaking'. In reality we found a dilapidated building with every door locked except the back door which was wide open to reveal a dark cobwebbed room with a few computers but it was completely deserted.. kind of like a ghost town tourist office. Needless to say we didn't get much information that way!
After a day spent swapping hostels from a pokey room with shared bathroom to a great wooden bungalow
with private bathroom complete with hot water and cable tv for the same price of $5 we also explored what there was to do in this small dusty town.. not much is what we can report! Our second day was spent hiring our favourite mode of transport, a moto and biking the hours journey to Cambodia's biggest waterfall, Boh Sera which is a striking double waterfall with a 10m drop and a 25m drop. This was well worth the journey, even if we did fall off the bike once, and we joined seemingly the majority of Cambodia's holidaymakers in making the most of the cool waters in the waterfall.
For our 3rd day we had hoped to be setting off on a 2 day trek though the jungle but this was not to be because we couldn't find anyone who would help us arrange it! As a poor substitute we booked a local guide for 1/2 a day to take us to see the villages of the local Pnong Hill People. This tour was ok but involved us following the guide on his moto though a lot of these people's back gardens which seemed a bit rude but who
were we to say anything.. especially when our guide only spoke very broken English. To be fair though we did get to see a traditional Phnong house. These houses are very large roofed small walled bamboo structures which are slowly being updated into more modern houses as the people sell off their land and have money to spend on these things. We also got to see some traditional weaving and enjoyed a nice lunch in a small local shop with our guides friends.
Typically no sooner had we done this tour we found out that a 2 day walking trek could be arranged so we booked ourselves in for the final 2 days of our time in Sen Monorum quite relieved that having made it all this way we would actually get to do what we had planned.
So the following day we were packed off and driven to a local Pnong village where where we were introduced to our (non english speaking!) guide and off we went over the hills & into the jungle of Cambodia eagerly keeping our eyes peeled for any tigers, leopards or wild elephants that may cross our paths. Yes we know that
it is highly unlikely but you just never know as they really do live here.. something we never knew until we arrived here.. it's amazing what we have learnt on our travels. As we were waiting for our guide to arrive we watched as a French guy arrived and was loaded onto an elephant for his 2 day trek though the jungle. As we said elephant trekking is pretty big out here but it's just not something we wanted to do for various reasons and why we were on foot. As it turned out we caught up with the elephant pretty quickly as they move quite slowly so spent the remainder of our 1st day trekking with the beautiful view of the elephants backside.. and all that came out of it! As lovely as they are elephants are actually quite intimidating when you are up close to them like that so we kept a bit of a distance, especially when we had already seen it kicking out at the little puppies in the village and didn't fancy being on the end of an elephant hoof (or is it foot?)
We were a bit relieved that we'd met up with
the other tourist, his guide and his little boy becuase with our guide not speaking any English we hadn't relished the thought of sitting with him all night trying to communicate by hand signals so at least with there being a small group of us we all had someone to talk to in our own language. After trekking for a while we had lunch by a river and watched the elephant have his mid afternoon wash which was quite nice to see, after that we trekked some more but not for long at all because we arrived at our little camp at 2pm and were signalled that we were here for the night. We were a little puzzled at what on earth we were supposed to do for the remaining 4 hours of daylight and then 4 odd hours of the evening.. we hadn't packed a book or our cards which we realised was a huge mistake! Thankfully there was a waterfall pretty much alongside the camp so we had a dip in there which whiled away a few hours while our guides made us dinner on the fire they'd built inside a wood cabin. It gets dark pretty early
around these parts so by 6pm it was pitch black, our guides had called it a day and tied the elephant to a tree and we were left with a smouldering fire wondering what was out there in the jungle. Dale & Sophie lasted until 8pm then got fed up of avoiding the killer ants and weird giant insects and decided to have a really early night.. so we tucked ourselves up in our hammocks, zipped up the mosquito nets tight and actually slept really well with probably the earliest night we've had in almost 10 months of travelling.
In the morning we were treated to a bit of a lie in too and didn't get woken up until 8am. We all had our breakfast consiting of instant noodles and one container of coffee to share and then we all watched on as the guide washed his elephant in the water, even getting it to go right under and use it's trunk as a snorkel at one point.. cool! Whilst watching this elephant we also learnt that they can climb up really steep slopes.. Sophie for one would never have thought that this was possible for such a huge
animal. The French tourist, his guide, son & elephant then packed their trunk and off they went to the Jungle.. trump trump trump (ha ha!)
Meanwhile we asked our guide if we were about to leave.. it was 10am after all.. and he indicated that first he had to cook dinner so we sat back down and got to look around camp & the waterfall some more.. fun! After about 1/2 hour cooking he told us that dinner was ready and we had to eat it now! Again it was rice & stewed vegetables which isn't the greatest of meals at the best of times let alone at 10.30am and just after you've eaten a bowlful of instant noodles but we did our best so as not to look ungrateful, our bacon was saved as a local Pnong Person and his 3 dogs came along all looking quite hungry so we donated our food to them! At 11.30am we eventually set off again, nothing like trekking in the heat of the day, especially when you are running low on water but we were looking forward to seeing some more of the jungle so set a good pace.
We
managed to get up quite a steep hill where we met some more very isolated Pnong People, then trekked for about another hour until we got to a dirt road. By this point our poor guide was really hot and tried, he had to carry the heavy stove on his back and was only 18 years old and clearly wasn't cut out for the job, wearing a heavy anorak to protect himself from the sun didn't seem to be helping either but he refused to take it off or let us carry the stove. We continued on the dusty road for another hour or so and eventually came to a remote village where they sold drinks.. we were all nearly on our knees from thirst at this point so pratically ran to stock up on water & cokes. On we went along the road until the guide let us know that we could expect a moto to pick us up at 2pm and that would be the end of the tour. We weren't too impressed that it was another 1/4 day trekking but he was clearly very exhausted so we sat by the side of the road to wait for
Our pickup!
Please all observe the small space in front of the bags but behind the roof of the car.. that was our seating areaour lift... and waited.. and waited. By 3pm we felt that perhaps something was wrong so encouraged him to get back up again and continue on becuase we didn't fancy another night in the jungle, especially as our bus out of here was at 7am the following day.
Reluctantly we kept on walking for another hour until the town was within our sights, we were however less than impressed that we were at the far end of town from our guesthouse which if our lift didn't turn up meant we would have to walk all the way though town and up the steep hill to our guesthouse.. which is of course exactly what we had to do! When we arrived home we found out that there had been a little 'miscommunication'' with the pickup time.. our guide had thought it was 2pm and it was really 4pm. We couldn't be angry as they had been out looking for us for over an hour by the time we got back so it was no ones fault and the guide had been punished enough by having to walk about another 5 miles home again.
Despite all the problems we did
love our jungle trek, it made our visit to this province complete and we would have been really upset to have missed out on it but we did give a few tips to our guesthouse on where they could make improvements for future tourists because this area has been pencilled by the WWF to be a real up and coming animal trekking area and we would hate to see them fail in their mission. It is a lovely area with some very friendly people who just need a little education on what to offer and how to offer it.
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