Osoam (Cardamom Mountains) 23/06 - 26/06

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It soon became clear why we had been so unsuccessful hitching a lift to Osoam, the "road" was more of a 4x4 Land Rover experience course, except we were stuffed into a saloon car with 6 other people! The taxi driver didn't seem at all phased by the craters and swamp patches. He was happily chatting and laughing steering with one hand for the duration. 2 hours and 40km later we were greeted by Mr Lim (the legend). He greeted us with a massive smile and after showing us to our rustic but charming bungalow his wife Kanya quickly hurried out with some dinner, absolutely delicious! We spent the rest of the night chatting to Nick, an expat who now runs a dirt biking business from Lims community centre.

The next morning we realised in the daylight how beautiful this place was. It was high in the mountains with a Lake surrounded by lush green everywhere you looked. Lim "Khmer Rouged" (put us to work) us into helping with the logging, not that we needed any persuasion! The local area was all jungle before three years ago when they cleared a large section to make room for reservoirs to help the local villages. Due to this, huge trees that were centuries old had been chopped down and left or burnt to make room. It was a shame to see the jungle being destroyed in part but were glad to go with Lim and Nick to salvage what we could to help them build more bungalows for the community centre. This involved hulking, rolling, lifting and chainsawing (not us don't worry) massive trees onto Lims truck. At first the weather was kind and we managed to get lots done before the rain began. We took shelter for half an hour but when it didn't seem to be letting up Lim sent us all back out and we got drenched! It was hilarious, there comes a point when you just can't get any more soaked and the temperature was still warm so it didn't matter. Soon we had a truck piled high with timber and attempted to drive it home. Unfortunately the rain had turned the track into a mud slide. We both got plastered in mud attempting to help push the truck back up the hill but were victorious in the end. Lim allowed us a short lunch break before setting us both to work once more this time demolishing a bungalow to make room for a new style bungalow serving the same basic purpose... Cambodian logic!!! We were rewarded once more by Kanya's fantastic cooking.

We awoke the next morning, Jack slightly worse for ware with a hangover, and Lim suggested that we join him to a strawberry farm. Little did we know a local family were moving house there and we were helping! They all piled into the back of the truck with their entire worldly possessions which were less than what we had brought for our year long trip. This included a sack full of 6, 3 week old puppies (yes puppies) Char couldn't believe her luck! The farm turned out to be abandoned so needed a bit of work and was essentially a large aluminium shed. Whilst we were helping them move in we couldn't help but feel a little sad thinking about the contrast between our lives and theirs. Whilst we were there our next Khmer Rouge task was collecting 100 strawberry plants for the community centre.

When we got back, Lim cracked on with more work (this guy never stops) but gave us the afternoon off. We spent this time drinking beer with Nick, Kim (Lims eldest son) and handicap man (not our nickname but he did have 1 leg). We also started our project of carving a plaque from a charred piece of wood we rescued the previous day. The next morning we said our fairwells and carried on further south to our next destination.

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