Out of the city and into the wild!
We are currently in a town called Ban Lung, located in the remote northeastern corner of Cambodia. We arrived on Wednesday night after a 6 hour bus ride in the most rickety, dust-filled contraption I have ever encountered before (along the dustiest, bumpiest, sketchiest and most rural dirt road I have ever experienced). It was pure (though painful) entertainment as we watched things fall from the overhead rack, saw guys jump out when we passed ponds in order to throw buckets of water on the air filter and waited in vain for those rare moments when the a/c would start blowing.
We had guesthouse guys waiting for us of course, and we took up the first ones we saw. They packed all six foreigners into a camry and drove us to the edge of town where they have a beautiful lakeside guesthouse with a nice big balcony, good food (rare in Cambodia) and the cleanest rooms we’ve seen thus far for only $3 a night.
The next morning we were able to see everything in the daylight, and I fell in love. It’s the quietest town I’ve witnessed in Asia, it’s all dirt roads, the people are friendly and aren’t trying to sell you anything and the temperature, due to the higher elevation, is downright chilly at night. The surrounding hills are beautiful, there are cows/horses/roosters/water buffalo roaming anywhere they please and it is an absolutely ideal running spot (something that I haven’t done since leaving Bangkok).
We walked (sort of on accident) the 7km to Yeak Loam lake, a volcanic crater filled with absolutely crystal clear water. It was overcast and drizzly (so nice after the blazing how days we’ve had so far in this country), perfect for walking, and the water was just warm enough to be great for swimming. The lake is perfectly circular, surrounded by thick bamboo and a nice walking trail, and we had the place almost entirely to ourselves. Except for a small group of kids on the far side, Gabe and I were the only people floating in the whole lake – it was phenomenal.
Just north of Ban Lung is Virachey National Park, one of the most untouched and unexplored national parks in the world. Most guesthouses do two-day treks to the edge of the park, which I’m sure is nice, but we were after something a bit more hardcore and took ourselves straight over to the park headquarters and departement of ecotourism.
Tomorrow we will set off on a six-day trek into the park; it will be Gabe, myself, two guides and a porter. We’ll meet early in the morning to go to the market and buy all of our food for the next week, then will take motorbikes to the town of Taveng. From there we will board a riverboat to a minority Brau village, where we will spend the afternoon and night. That will be a very unique experience, and we’re counting on learning some basket weaving and drinking some rice wine – they’re an animist group with very specific cultural mores and I am so excited to stay overnight and experience how they live.
We leave early Sunday morning and start walking – it will be 7+ hours of walking through jungle, in a river, and into the grasslands each day. We’ll set up camp each evening and sleep in hammocks with mosquito nets, then get up early for wildlife viewing and, of course, more walking. We are going to be wet, smelly and absolutely exhausted by the end of the week, but I cannot wait! I’ve never done anything of the sort and am sure that I will learn a ton in the realm of roughing it. It’s also fascinating that in the past two months, only one other person has been in this area – this is about as remote as you can get!
I’ll of course have much more to write after I actually finish the trek, so check back in a week or so – we’ll spend another day or two in Ban Lung afterwards, ,head directly back to Phnom Penh where we’ll immediately escape to Vietnam. In any case, somewhere around the 24-26th (providing I don’t encounter an angry tiger) there should be a new blog and many new photos – wish me luck on this!
Tags: 1, Ban Lung, Cambodia, trek, Virachey, wilderness
allisonrae
October 17th, 2008 at 9:41 am
[…] Original post by allisonrae […]
October 17th, 2008 at 10:34 am
OMG Peeps – sounds incredible! It’s going to be a long week not hearing from you but what an exciting adventure you have ahead of you. I hope you have extra batteries for your camera as you are obviuosly headed to a place I’ll never see. As always, be safe. I bet when you get back to town you’ll have the best feeling shower of your life 🙂
October 17th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I used to think that I roughed it sometimes on a hunting trip, obviously, what you guys are doing is 10 times rougher than anything I have ever done. There is a saying when you are in a special place in the wild that you are in “God’s Country”. I think thats where you are headed! Stay safe and enjoy.
Dad
October 17th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I hope you guys have an amazing adventure. I hope you don’t encounter any tigers…but if you accidentally get close enough…make sure you get a picture or else Clayton will never believe it! Enjoy…I look forward to hearing all about it!
Juli
November 24th, 2009 at 3:41 am
Lovely good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have actually enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way, I will be signing up to receive your feed and I hope you post very soon.