While it may be best known for its Angkor era ruins, poverty, and horrific history, Cambodia has pockets of stunning natural beauty unlike anything you've ever seen. My last stop in Cambodia was the pocket known as Ratanakiri Province in the northeastern corner, tucked between Laos and Vietnam. We set out on a three day jungle trek with a local guide to see it for ourselves. After a tuk tuk ride far out of the town of Ban Lung, and a river crossing on a floating wooden platform car ferry, we set off on a bright red dirt road.
After four hours of hoofing it on mostly exposed paths, we arrived at our home for the next couple of nights. An 80 year old woman permanently hunched over, no doubt from years of long days bent over the rice fields, welcomed us with a mighty firm handshake. I later learned that life expectancy for men in Ratanakiri is just 39 years, and 43 years for women. She must have incredible stories.
The house was a traditional wooden one on stilts. On the ground (under the house), pigs, dogs, and chickens lazed. Upstairs was a kitchen where meals were cooked on an open fire, one bedroom for the family, and a common room where we hung our hammocks.
One night we hung our clothes out to dry downstairs. If I understood correctly, either a pig or cow went to town on them overnight before our guide could stop them. Either way, I ended up with an extra breathable shirt.
Just out back, the shower was a wooden deck built over the water with a bucket. Talk about a shower with a view.
Frogs croaked as the sun went down, and we headed in for a dinner of vegetable soup and rice.
The views were gorgeous and unobstructed by any power lines--no electricity here. No hospital either; the closest thing were some leaves or tree bark our guide pointed out as "medicine." And I asked in a few different ways and always got the same answer: no school for this village of 200 families.
What I found shocking was as rural and undeveloped as this place was, cell phones were still a common sight, with a strong signal, too. The rafters of houses were filled with phone numbers--to call for rice, to share a chicken, or to chat with a crush. A car battery provided juice for the single light inside, and charging phones and headlamps. At night when dinner and dishes were done, they played cards, with their phones pumping out tunes, puffed on hand-rolled smokes from the tobacco tree outside, and drank deep from the shared rice wine with a bamboo straw.
No English is spoken here; Kavet is the local language and only a few know Khmer (official Cambodian language). This made for limited conversation, and coupled with our guide's poor English, made for some challenging rounds of charades.
Trekking brought us through neon green rice paddies backed by bright blue skies, which I had previously only seen in the far off distance.
We trudged through mud so thick and deep it sucked the shoes right off our feet.
We entered the jungle and experienced a proper wet season downpour, but that didn't last long and we moved on to a refreshing waterfall where lunch was cooked for us on the rocks.
We hiked along muddy roads flanked by cashew trees and travelled by the occasional motorbike or local with a woven basket strapped to their back, collecting ingredients for the day.
But there were bigger tracks, too. Illegal logging continues here, as it commands profits many times what rice does. We passed crews on tractors, heard chainsaws, and saw kids carrying beautiful fresh cut wood that will surely sell for a premium.
We were brought to a nearby rice field where our local guide's family was planting. We got to try our hands at it, but the kids working there were quick. They would plant one bundle of three or four every second. Work was not without a little fun though, as a mud fight ensued.
We stopped at a neighbor's house and tried to ask what was typically eaten around here. They answered yes to any animal we could think of. Aside from the usual, this included dogs, cats, birds, geckos, spiders, frogs, porcupines. We asked how they hunt and they produced a homemade air rifle. We asked for a demo and they proudly obliged!
That night some men went out frog hunting, and the next morning we were offered tasty fresh frog with our coffee. Included with breakfast was beef from one of the village's shared cows, slaughtered the night prior.
With that we hit the mud again with sore feet and sopping shoes, with a little encouragement along the way from a local who waved us over to sample his rice wine.
Once back at our starting point, the tuk tuk couldn't drive us fast enough to a cold shower and dry clothes. While our area was cleared, on the way back to town we passed minesweeper crews at work--on foot, in jeeps, on tractors, and wheeling metal detectors.
We stopped to take in a surreal sight: dozens of posts with orange triangle "DANGER - UXO" signs littered the landscape, with kids playing just meters away, and houses delicately positioned in between. A UXO is an unexploded ordnance; these people live, work, and play in an active minefield. I had read about this, but it was a whole different feeling standing there. This is what locals are stuck with. Cleanup is an ongoing and daunting task, and decades of work likely remain.
As we took off again, we heard a (hopefully) controlled explosion in the distance.
After four hours of hoofing it on mostly exposed paths, we arrived at our home for the next couple of nights. An 80 year old woman permanently hunched over, no doubt from years of long days bent over the rice fields, welcomed us with a mighty firm handshake. I later learned that life expectancy for men in Ratanakiri is just 39 years, and 43 years for women. She must have incredible stories.
The house was a traditional wooden one on stilts. On the ground (under the house), pigs, dogs, and chickens lazed. Upstairs was a kitchen where meals were cooked on an open fire, one bedroom for the family, and a common room where we hung our hammocks.
One night we hung our clothes out to dry downstairs. If I understood correctly, either a pig or cow went to town on them overnight before our guide could stop them. Either way, I ended up with an extra breathable shirt.
Just out back, the shower was a wooden deck built over the water with a bucket. Talk about a shower with a view.
Frogs croaked as the sun went down, and we headed in for a dinner of vegetable soup and rice.
The views were gorgeous and unobstructed by any power lines--no electricity here. No hospital either; the closest thing were some leaves or tree bark our guide pointed out as "medicine." And I asked in a few different ways and always got the same answer: no school for this village of 200 families.
What I found shocking was as rural and undeveloped as this place was, cell phones were still a common sight, with a strong signal, too. The rafters of houses were filled with phone numbers--to call for rice, to share a chicken, or to chat with a crush. A car battery provided juice for the single light inside, and charging phones and headlamps. At night when dinner and dishes were done, they played cards, with their phones pumping out tunes, puffed on hand-rolled smokes from the tobacco tree outside, and drank deep from the shared rice wine with a bamboo straw.
No English is spoken here; Kavet is the local language and only a few know Khmer (official Cambodian language). This made for limited conversation, and coupled with our guide's poor English, made for some challenging rounds of charades.
Trekking brought us through neon green rice paddies backed by bright blue skies, which I had previously only seen in the far off distance.
We trudged through mud so thick and deep it sucked the shoes right off our feet.
We entered the jungle and experienced a proper wet season downpour, but that didn't last long and we moved on to a refreshing waterfall where lunch was cooked for us on the rocks.
We hiked along muddy roads flanked by cashew trees and travelled by the occasional motorbike or local with a woven basket strapped to their back, collecting ingredients for the day.
But there were bigger tracks, too. Illegal logging continues here, as it commands profits many times what rice does. We passed crews on tractors, heard chainsaws, and saw kids carrying beautiful fresh cut wood that will surely sell for a premium.
We were brought to a nearby rice field where our local guide's family was planting. We got to try our hands at it, but the kids working there were quick. They would plant one bundle of three or four every second. Work was not without a little fun though, as a mud fight ensued.
We stopped at a neighbor's house and tried to ask what was typically eaten around here. They answered yes to any animal we could think of. Aside from the usual, this included dogs, cats, birds, geckos, spiders, frogs, porcupines. We asked how they hunt and they produced a homemade air rifle. We asked for a demo and they proudly obliged!
That night some men went out frog hunting, and the next morning we were offered tasty fresh frog with our coffee. Included with breakfast was beef from one of the village's shared cows, slaughtered the night prior.
With that we hit the mud again with sore feet and sopping shoes, with a little encouragement along the way from a local who waved us over to sample his rice wine.
Once back at our starting point, the tuk tuk couldn't drive us fast enough to a cold shower and dry clothes. While our area was cleared, on the way back to town we passed minesweeper crews at work--on foot, in jeeps, on tractors, and wheeling metal detectors.
We stopped to take in a surreal sight: dozens of posts with orange triangle "DANGER - UXO" signs littered the landscape, with kids playing just meters away, and houses delicately positioned in between. A UXO is an unexploded ordnance; these people live, work, and play in an active minefield. I had read about this, but it was a whole different feeling standing there. This is what locals are stuck with. Cleanup is an ongoing and daunting task, and decades of work likely remain.
As we took off again, we heard a (hopefully) controlled explosion in the distance.