Sen Monorom, Cambodia – January 12th – 16th, 2017

Our minibus ride to Sen Monorom began on a promising note: the van showed up at our hotel on time and there seemed to be a fair amount of room for everyone. After a few stops around town to pickup a few other travelers, the driver pulled into the bus station, where he promptly left everyone in the bus with the engine running as he went to get some food. After over an hour of waiting and telling ourselves to just go with the flow and stop trying to control things, five more local passengers for the bus showed up and were squeezed into the back row of the van. The van then hurried on out of town towards Sen Monorom, picking up additional locals throughout the trip. At one point, there were 22 passengers plus their luggage in a 16-passenger van, a motorbike strapped to the back, and a grandmother and her grandchild sitting on a midget-sized plastic chair in the aisle right next to me. A few thoughts:

1. Passenger safety is clearly not a concern in the bus system in Cambodia, although there were, miraculously, seat belts for those lucky enough to have real seats (we really did have a moment akin to Christmas morning when we saw them). The small plastic chairs in the aisles definitely did not have seat belts, but reminded us of the buses in Nepal.
2. The bus systems in SE Asia seem to work like magic for the locals who have somehow arranged for pickups and drop-off along the bus route, but they are usually opaque and undecipherable for foreigners. You just never know what you’re going to get: if you’ll actually be picked up at your hotel or not (or if they forgot), when/where/how many times you’ll stop at questionable food vendors, if you’ll actually be dropped off at the location you were lucky enough to have extracted from the bus ticket seller, etc etc. The second you think you have figured it all out and are on top of the bus system (in one country anyway), something happens on the next trip that throws everything you thought you understood about the system out the window.
3. We would not be surprised to learn that the drivers have some sort of bet going for who can get to a destination the fastest. Our driver on this occasion, drove in the center of the road forcing everyone else, including on-coming traffic, to swerve off the road to avoid a head-on collision. Even though the speed limit was posted 40 km/h we were averaging closer to 120 km/h.   

Suffice to say that travel days, specifically bus/minibus travel days, are our least favorite part of international travel. Okay, rant over.

After witnessing numerous attempts at vehicular manslaughter, we were finally dropped off in the center of town in Sen Monorom. We were deposited onto a red dirt parking lot with impressive views of the surrounding hills. The air was noticeably drier and cooler. In one direction, there were hills covered in pine trees, while in the other, the hills were covered with lush jungle. After a short pickup truck ride to the hotel, we were checked in, settling into our bungalow, and said hello to the ants that shared the room with us. With only dirty clothes remaining, we were desperate to do laundry. Although we asked the hotel for a bucket, they refused us, saying that we needed to walk into town to use a laundry service. They could not however, tell us where a laundry service place was in the small town. Also, 2 out of the 3 times we have used a laundry service over the past 4 months, we have not had all of our clothing returned. Our paranoia over losing more of our precious clothing (and that they charge almost $1 per item) led to us spending the next 2 hours washing our clothes in the shower. This was not an easy task. I really dislike handwashing clothes to begin with and having to do it without a bucket or sink was just miserable. We had to rinse each item under the water, sprinkle soap on it, rub it all together and squeeze to get it as soapy as we could, then rinse it (under water with no pressure) to get out as much soap and grime as we could. And then you have to squeeze the shit out of the item to get as much water out as possible (I have resorted to twisting my clothes but I’m slightly more gentle with Dani’s), and then finally you try to squeeze the item onto the clothes line with the rest of the mass of slightly cleaner clothes. Ugh. Anyway, after that cost-saving experience, we headed into town for some pool, drinks, and dinner.

We spent most of the next morning working out and doing more laundry. Needless to say, Dani picked a tough workout, but it felt good to focus on our health for an hour. Also, it is much easier for us to relax and enjoy the rest of our day with all of those endorphins running through our systems after a morning workout. So, we headed into town where we rented the nicest motorbike ever (the speedometer worked!!!). As recommended by the Swedish owner of the restaurant we ate at the previous evening, we drove about 30 minutes south of town to the village of Dak Dam. It was such a picturesque little village: it was surrounded by hills and the lush greens of the forests and fields contrasted so beautifully with the red dirt tracks. After spending a little while in awe of the beauty, we headed east for about an hour to the large Bousra waterfalls. We probably would have enjoying the waterfalls more if the sun had been out and we had brought our bathing suits, but it was still very nice, just not sure if it was worth two hours of travel. Back in town and with the sun beginning to go down, we checked out a few of the locally well-known hilltop viewpoints including the “Seaforest Viewpoint” (the view really looked like a sea, but it was actually a forest). The rest of the evening was spent taking it easy, getting a few research errands done, and eating some meh veggie pizza.

Motorbike tour of Sen Monorom area including Dak Dam village, Bousra Waterfall, and the sea forest 

The following morning began our excursion with the Mondulkiri Project, a locally owned and run elephant sanctuary and ecotourism company. The trip started with a wild off-road drive where we hung on for dear life in the bed of truck while the driver tackled some pretty hairy tracks. At the project’s “jungle lodge”, we were lectured for an hour by the project’s owner, Mr. Tree. He ranted and raved about how his project is better for the locals than the others and that it truly cares for the elephants and they spent $41k on an elephant last year, etc. etc. etc. All very good things except that he was basically yelling it at us like someone might to a nasty rival. The delivery was pretty intense but the message seemed genuine: this project really does take the elephants’ well-being and the local community’s future seriously. Next, we all grabbed a few bunches of bananas and headed down to meet and feed the four elephants for a few hours. The four elephants were Lucky (super lazy, she requires you to put the bananas directly into her mouth), Sophie (super banana greedy), Princess (she seemed to poop a lot), and Comvine (the biggest, youngest and bossiest). It was incredible to be so up close and personal with these gentle giants (think massive puppies). After a few hours for lunch and the typical Cambodian afternoon break, we met back up with Princess and Comvine to wash them in the river. The whole group was in the river with the elephants, splashing water on them, scrubbing them, and feeding them bananas. It was so amazing! And then, Princess became so relaxed that she pooped (again) in the river. Not exactly wanting to swim with the basketball-sized elephant turds, everyone quickly exited the river and Princess left. Afterward, we learned from the guide that she does that every single day. Thanks for the warning! Then we hurried over to a different watering hole where Lucky and Sophie would give us a bathing show, but instead they just walked through the water to the other side. The Mondulkiri Project doesn’t allow their elephant carers (mahouts) to ride the elephants or force them to do anything at all, case in point: not forcing them to take a bath if they don’t want to. This was in a stark contrast to the elephants we saw, rode on, and bathed while in Nepal (see Chitwan National Park blog post); we felt very ashamed for doing exactly what Mr. Tree had earlier told us was inhumane. Throughout the rest of the evening, we watched our local guide cook veggie stew in a bamboo stalk over a fire (it smelled and tasted delicious), chatted with our new friends from our trekking group, and played telephone-pictionary.

The amazing elephants of the Mondulkiri Project

Clockwise from top left: our Bunong guide cooking bamboo shoot stew, a local Cambodian girl unimpressed by the utterly terrifying pickup truck ride, some of our group in the pickup bed, Dani trying out her hammock after lunch, and our uncomfortable but communal digs for our night in the forest

Trekking in the Mondulkiri forest

After spending a somewhat restless night in hammocks, we awoke to an overcast and dreary day over the jungle. So what do you do when you know it’s going to rain? You go for an 18km trek through the jungle! We trekked for 7 hours up and down hills, saw a few beautiful and secluded waterfalls, a tiny cave inhabited by two grasshoppers, forded a river, and walked through lots and lots of wet jungle. We arrived in the early evening to our guide’s home in Bunong village. After strolling down the singular village street, surrounded by children, piglets, and dogs, a couple of trekkers grabbed hands with some of the kids and began swinging them by their arms. The game caught on quickly and by the time we had to leave the village we had all joined hands with about 30 village children to create a giant tourist/kid swinging circle. It was an incredible experience! The children’s behavior also proved to us what we learned in India: that kids can be obsessively focused on one thing over and over again. That evening back at the hotel, we tried to pass it all on by sharing the amazing two-day experience with other travelers that had just arrived in town.

Bunong village at the end of our 18km trek

Kids are kids no matter what culture they are raised in