Hola chicos and chicas!
Sorry, it's been a while since we wrote... but other than a couple weekends away, it's been pretty much M-F 9-5 here! But those weekends were nice to be away from the hustle and bustle of chaotic Phnom Penh and it's infuriating traffic!
A few weekends ago, we went down to Sihanoukville. Sihanoukville is Cambodia's premiere beach resort town. Albeit it's a far cry from the beautiful Thai resorts not too far away, it's a pretty chilled out place. And wet... in rainy season. It rained for pretty much all but 3-hours of our time there! We took the 5:45pm bus out of Phnom Penh for the 4-hour ride there... which ended up arriving at 2:00am or so as our bus broke down about 2.5 hours out of Phnom Penh. So we arrived on bus #2, and as you can expect, at 2:00am, your choice of transportation to the beach is rather limited... to half-drunk moto-dop drivers... in the monsoon rain. So after agreeing to a $5 fare to get us to our hotel we jumped on the back of the bike partially covered by the moto driver's large poncho. It was going well, until he stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. But neither the gas station attendant or the driver knew where our hotel was. One phone call, and we were on the way again. We made it there about 5 minutes later, ran into the hotel, and gave the moto driver a $5 bill. What's that he said? No, he meant $10, with alcohol breath emanating from his mouth... well "No." was my answer... at which point he pleaded for $2 more. "No." $1 more... "No." At which point we got our room key and walked to our room soaked, but happy to be able to have a shower and go to bed. The next day was rather relaxing... it rained pretty much all day... so we spent the day reading and researching, in nice comfy chairs at a bar by the beach, for the portion of our trip up to Christmas/New Year's. In that afternoon and the next morning, we had pretty much set our itinerary through Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. A VERY productive weekend at the beach indeed... without having touched the water!
This past weekend, we decided to go to Mondulkiri, the easternmost province in Cambodia, where it's cooler, there are rolling hills, and elephants! And RAIN! It wasn't as bad as Sihanoukville, but it did rain a fair bit, making our jungle treks quite the muddy affair! We spent our first day doing a not-so-difficult hike through the jungle to a small waterfall with our guide Cham... a young guy who also went by the name of Cham Dundee or Cham Wayne, depending on the accent he was talking in! We started off by riding moto-dops to the village where the trailhead was. Riding a moto in Mondulkiri is significantly different from riding in Phnom Penh. Granted there's no traffic... but there's also little in terms of gravel under your tires! Making it a very slippery ride on the mud... which Nat got to learn first hand. We wondered why her moto was taking so long. When she arrived, her whole right side was a nice reddish brown hue. The moto driver had slowed down so much at one point that the bike slipped out from under them without the forward momentum. Luckilly the ground was soft (ie. muddy) and Nat's only war wound was a small almost unnoticeable scrape on the hand. Though her neck was a bit stiff the next morning even though she expertly avoided hitting her head on the ground. It's amazing how 3-months in Phnom Penh prepares you for these things, ehhh? Anyhow, once we arrived we hiked down the valley to the waterfall through lots of mud as well. I decided to wear sandals that day (bad move) and managed to slice open my left big toe a bit on a plant leaf I think. Not too bad though... worse were the ants! Black & red! The red ones sting a bit, but I'm told the black ones REALLY sting and it hurts for minutes. And they're EVERYWHERE! And BIG! Like 1 cm long big! Once we arrived, we saw a nice little waterfall where you could jump off the 10 foot cliff or so into the water below... which neither of us did. But we happily watched as others did. The way home was significantly less muddy as we chose the dry road back to the village where we began the hike! We were happy to be back to our lodge that evening though... where the gas-heated showers were nice and piping hot! You see, unlike Phnom Penh, Mondulkiri is a nice balmy 20 degrees or so with the rainy season and lots of wind! So not nearly as hot & sweaty! In fact it was a little chilly at times! It didn't help that our little wood huts were not completely sealed and there was a draft coming through in the evening. Don't get me wrong though, the huts were nice and cosy when they weren't leaking! Yes, we had a leaky one the first night we were there... and unfortunately one of the leaks was directly above the bed... so we laid Nat's poncho above the mosquito net to deflect the water. The lodge happily gave us another room the next day. Another note about this lodge was that there were animals everywhere! Cats, dogs, chickens, cows, horses... ants. All were pretty friendly though! The cats were free to roam around and often came and said hello, especially Cougar, a light beige and black cat, who didn't like it when you moved while he sat happily on you! Which he would let you know with his claws when you moved! And the dogs were friendly too, though fenced in around the owner's house. One time, one of them got loose and happily strolled into the lodge as well, tail wagging, tongue hanging! And then there were the cows and horses which lied/stood around in the field between the lodge and the wood huts. They seemed friendly and docile but we were warned not to get close! One funny thing is that the horses, when it rained, used the wood huts as shelter... so you may smell horse wafting up through the floorboards sometimes! Luckily our huts were not tall enough for them to stand under! But it happened to one couple we met while they were watching a movie with horses in it!
The second day in Mondulkiri was the highlight as it involved elephants! We went to visit the Elephant Valley Project that is run by a young Brit named Jack. It was an entertaining day, especially listening to Jack and his assistant Jemma chat like husband and wife! Jack's not so PC, so it was amusing at times to hear some of the things he that came out of his mouth. He was relishing next week when a new volunteer arrived, who's surname was Cock. I'll leave it at that. But Jack knows his stuff regarding elephants and has a good operation. His sanctuary now has 9 elephants, most of them overworked and badly treated elephants... because their owners couldn't afford not to overwork them or didn't know how to treat their elephants well. He's bought 3 of them outright, and rents the rest of them, while providing some jobs to some of the owners' families as well... training them how to be good mahouts. He's got 36 employees he says who either help the elephants, watch the workers' kids, or help out at the centre where they're building a small lodge for tourists to stay at. We saw 5 elephants in the morning... 1 male and 4 females... watched them as they learn to become elephants again, and helped wash some of them. They don't let you interact too much with the elephants since it is a sanctuary for them. In the afternoon, the mahouts, unfortunately, forgot to let them know where they were heading with the elephants, so we spent a nice afternoon looking for them... you know, they're only 10 feet all, 4 metres long, and weigh a ton... but the sanctuary has 600 hectares. So we ended up having a nice muddy walk through the jungle again! Unfortunately the guides guessed wrong on where the elephants might be. Oh well, we saw them in the morning, and Jack & Jemma offered us a discount. Overall it was a fun day and we were happy we went. We met some nice and funny people, including two Brits that Jack was heading to Laos with the next day... The lesson learned for the day: always let the Brit lead you, and stay back 50-feet, through a place where there may be landmines! =p
The next day (yesterday), we headed back to Phnom Penh. We had taken the Phnom Penh Sorya bus on the way up which was a comfortable, but 8-hour ride. So on the way back we decided to take a minivan which was supposed to take 6-hours. Supposed to. It was an adventurous ride back to say the least. As soon as we got into the van, we noticed a stink. The air-con was never turned on as well, which was OK, because the wind blew away the smell. But the ride that was supposed to take 6-hours, turned into 8-hours... as we stopped in every village along the way to pick-up or drop-off someone or cargo... and at every police checkpoint along the way, which there were 5 of. The buses don't need to stop at those checkpoints. I'm not sure what they check for at the checkpoints, but after the third one, after we had started rolling again, a police car with Air Force plates came zooming down the road towards us with siren and lights on and asked us to pull over. Apparently someone in the van, we believe she was the owner of the van as well, was smuggling some timber out of the province which is illegal. Well, that's the story we extracted, the true story may have been lost in translation. But, as with all police here in Cambodia, you've got to pay a fine/bribe before you can get on your way... which took a while for the lady and the policeman to negotiate... as we all sat around waiting. I believe that the initial requested "fine" was $25... but was negotiated down to $10. And 30 minutes later we were on our way, wood still in the van.
Anyhow, those are our stories for the last month or so. Our time in Cambodia is quickly coming to an end. On September 25, we resume our travels... and pure travel it will be! No more work! YAY! Well, at least Nat can say that right now, as she's already done... I've got another 10-days to go!
For any of you that are interested in meeting up, here's our itinerary until Christmas/New Year's:
Sep. 25 to Oct. 24: Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh City northward to Hanoi
Oct. 24 to Nov. 5: Laos from Vientiane northward to Luang Prabang
Nov. 5 to Dec. 4: Thailand from Chiang Mai southward to Ko Lipe
Dec. 4 to Dec. 17: Malaysia from Langkawi southward to Singapore
Dec. 17 to 21: Singapore
Dec. 21 to Jan. 6: Mauritius
We've got a few pics from Mondulkiri and will post those soon... didn't take a single one in Sihanoukville though!
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