by Nick | Mar 17, 2017 | Blog
An Angkorian Paddle
Background
The rise and fall of the Angkorian Empire, which lasted 500 years from the 9th to 14th century, was centered in what is now Siem Reap Province, around its greatest monument Angkor Wat. A population of a million in an area of 1000 km2 serviced the empire and built the religious structures the remnants of which we see today.
Angkor Wat Moat
Key to the success of the civilization was the management of water in a region of inundation and drought. An elaborate system of canals and barays or reservoirs channeled water from the Kulen Hills to the North into the city.
The availability of water ensured that food went in and shit went out. Canals facilitated the construction of the temples conveying the stone from the quarries to the North. And the temples were built with defensive moats that maintained ground water levels preventing their subsidence.
Runta Dev, the tunnel under the 8m high walls of Angkor Thom that channeled waste-water into the moat
It is now thought that the decline in management and maintenance of the hydrology coincided with that of the empire.
In recent years the importance of these systems has been recognized again as the massive increase in tourism has lead to ground water levels falling and the potential collapse of the temples. It is no coincidence that the best preserved are those with functioning moats.
One man has been championing the restoration of the Angkorian water management. He has overseen the construction of canals that channel the Siem Reap River into the North Baray, the moats of Preah Khan, Ankgor Thom and even Angkor Wat. Reducing the possibility of Siem Reap flooding as it did in 2011, while maintaining ground water levels.
Overseeing our progress up the North Baray Channel
These small matters aside obviously the most important function of Angkorian hydrology is to allow us to paddle through the Angkor Park, Cambodia’s best preserved 400 km2 of lowland mixed evergreen and deciduous forest.
And so it was one Monday morning that his excellency the Director of Water Management at Apsara, facilitated by Jady together with Buntha and myself kayaked through the heart of a Unesco declared world heritage site. Jady and I had previously recced Peou’s canal that diverts the flow from Siem Reap into the North Baray and round to the West Baray. This time we didn’t get lost and anyway Peou knew the way, but – we hadn’t followed the river as it heads South towards the Tonle Sap Lake.
The current had cut deep into the soft ground leaving 7meter high banks that we had to scramble down with our kayaks and then awkwardly get in them.
Paddling down the Siem Reap River
A few fallen branches had accumulated enough flotsam and jetsam to block the river with no way through but a messy scramble. Jady and Buntha paved the way. Poeu and I made it easy.
There are 700 Angkorian structures inside the Angkor Park but only 180 of them can be called temples, they’re the ones with moats. These monumental stone edifices need solid ground for their structural integrity, without it they crumble to a pile of stones. Siem Reap is a built on a light sandy soil, water gives it substance, which is what the moats do for the temples.
Contemplating our adventure
A few hundred meters on either side there were no doubt bus loads of Asian tourists but here in the heart of Angkor we paddled passed explosions of bamboo erupting on either side. White-collared Kingfishers taunted Buntha to catch a photo. A Snake Eagle followed our progress from above, while a Shikra watched us with disinterest from a fallen branch. All manner of other birds sang from the trees on either side obliterating any thoughts of tourists or even other people.
We’d catered for 5 pax kayaking but one of the water management guys came along for the ride so the third kayak was one paddle power short and we had visions of Kosal, Jady’s assistant unable to move his shoulders for a month or 2. They’d had the sense to share the work and caught up beaming and claiming the big adventure.
Our driver had accumulated helpers by the time we reached the sluice gates at the French Bridge (confusingly built by Americans), who pulled us up the steep stairs to Jady’s vehicle.
It took a while to sink in that we had paddled through one of the wonders of the world, visited by 3 million people but seen none, instead thick riparian forest as if we were discovering it for the first time.
by Nick | Feb 15, 2017 | Blog
A BeTreed Adventure
Waived away by the staff, who’ve sort of got used to my bizarre behavior. Legs aside my trusted steed. In this case a new 125cc Honda Dream. Gloves, scarf, helmet, a hat in the front basket and most importantly an incredibly complicated set of directions to get there, I set off for ……. Yes you’ve guessed it, Little Red Fox.
On my way to – Little Red Fox
‘Head North’, said Buntha. I did and avoided the ever-increasing traffic around Siem Reap and the death defying kamikaze pilots on NR6 to Phnom Penh. I bypassed the ticket checks around Angkor Park, passed by Phnom Bok heading North through the cassava fields towards the Phnom Kulen hills that run for 40km West to East. Turned right and came to Svay Leu 10km early.
The slightly absurd Tela petrol court in the middle of a logged landscape that featured as a milestone in my weighty tomb of directions, couldn’t be missed. I passed the rubber plantation with the fence to the right as instructed and drove on until the fork to the left.
A red earth road through the DDF
Stretches of enchanting open dry deciduous forest (DDF) interspersed with green jungle lifted my spirits, which fell with a clang when they gave way to felled clearings.
I had the local village to thank. They burnt the rubber company HQ and filled its wells then overturned the earth moving equipment. ‘They could have waited until the company had finished the road,’ commented Ben.
My trusty little Dream made light work of the red earth roads but didn’t like the sand on the last 10km of oxcart trail. Ben had been laying gravel, which relieved much of the sandy slip sliding.
A river crossing where the floods rise 3m above the bridge and the open forest merges into green jungle. Ahead a hill could be seen rising proud of the trees. Monkeys shrieked, peacocks honked, a ferret badger ran across the path and I was there.
Ben and Sharyn’s house
Ben welcomed me to his family’s home. A 3 legged soppy dog to see off the monkeys. A love-sick gibbon who periodically eloped with her boyfriend. The previously mentioned ferret badger and Sharyn, Ben’s wife, their 2 daughters and visiting Burmese Australian family.
We said grace and tucked into a delicious vegetarian dinner. ‘It’s so good, especially the homemade chutney,’ I beamed. ‘We bought it in Siem Reap,’ said Sharyn.
I’m writing this perched on a platform 10m up in the fork in a tree.
My bedroom
Precarious you might think except my platform has a double bed that lets me gaze at the shining sickle of a moon and the stars casting a spotlight on my tree house. I looked for a chair but its not needed as I can lean back against a tree trunk.
GQT on Radio 4 as the moon disappeared into the forest.
Trees are alive. Trees bring life. Trees are ……. God? I thought.
Streaks of orange in the East. A golden glow bathed the vally as the sun rose. Too much beauty to be clocked. Quickly masked by a cloud that turned the gold to gray or so it seemed at the time.
Breakfast was a jolly affair as different members of the family appeared and Koy, who was greeted by the Long-tailed Macaque who’d fallen in love with him after he rescued her from the village.
….. 10m up a tree
Koy was our guide for the hike up Phnom Tnout. Tall trees, no chain saws. A canopy too thick for the light to penetrate so the way was clear while we stayed under the evergreen forest. Thick bamboo grass hid our path when we emerged into the DDF. Deliberately lit fires have started to sweep across the landscape now the rainy season has finished but there have been no fires here for 4 years thanks to Ben.
Climbing up the side of Phnom Tnaut we heard the whooping calls of 3 gibbons or so said Koy who saw them.
In between the buttresses of a Silk Cotton tree with Koy
Tall trees with buttressed roots towered above us. Strangler figs that having strangled their host continued to grow finding strength in their self gratifying entwinement.
Our first stop a dried out pool deep in the forest but still soft enough to catch the prints of Banteng and wild boar that routed there. We ate Sharyn’s carrot and chilly muffins (an acquired taste) beside a trapaeng and a flurry of butterflies attracted by it’s remaining muddy water.
At the next pool we spied 3 Wooly-necked Storks but they took off out of range of my little lense.
Phum Barang was a pile of rocks on a ridge amidst the open forest (lit. French Village). It was where a French flag had flown, Ben told me.
More important were the views across a plain of trees to a blue hill in the distance that not even the evil plume of a forest fire beyond Ben’s boundaries could spoil
The forested Kingdom of Betreed
I spied blue irrigation pipes beside a stream. ‘Its where we get our water from,’ said Sven my hiking buddy.
Prasat Tnout
A fantastic walk but after 4 hours lunch and the lodge was becoming a more compelling prospect. Instead of following the pipes, counter-intuitively we went back up the hill to find another pile of stones. This time put together as Prasat Tnout (lit Tnout temple) in front of a reeking bat cave.
The family were home. Badger the ferret badger. Mikey the three legged dog and Little Mut (not his real name) his sad sidekick. The Green pea-Fowl honked, while the little punk macaques sporting their mohecan hair cuts chased each other after Ben’s bananas.
Molly the love sick Pileated Gibbon
Lunch over we were graced with a visit from Molly who swung arm by arm from the trees onto the balcony. She peeled the 12 bananas offered then inspected worktops and shelves for anything edible. We’d finished lunch but left the plates and glasses on the table, which got the once over as Molly inserted her long prehensile fingers into the containers, letting her fur soak up the liquid before sucking it. A close contest between the jug of milk and a glass of fruit juice, the fruit juice won. She let Ben scratch her feet then languidly swung off into the jungle teasing the macaques as she went.
Ben and I set off on the motorbikes looking for Banteng, He on a rusty collection of red pipes and mine my trusty Dream. Guests would pay for the ride, twisting and turning on a bumpy path through the tall grass, shaded by magical trees glowing as the late afternoon sun sank between their branches.
In search of Banteng
We didn’t see any of the 60 or so Banteng that roam round the mountain but Ben told me about his anti poaching patrols and how he came to be here. ‘Set up a community forest,’ the Forestry Administration told him so he did together with the local village.
A dappled sunlight lit the leaves around my tree house this morning as I lay for a while enjoying the cool and effervescence of green bursting with life around my platform.
Breakfast is a nice meal at BeTreed (they’re all pretty good), coffee, fruit, yoghurt and more coffee. An Oriental Hornbill flew across our view, while a Crested-serpent Eagle hungrily watched the peafowl.
Ben as in BeTreed (as opposed to Hur, he bares a striking resemblance to Charlton Heston) was waiting expectantly. ‘Zipline?’ ‘Ok lets go,’ I resigned. We retraced our steps of yesterday up the side of the valley to a wooden platform with a wire stretching to infinity. ‘Hmmm,’ I thought to myself as I stepped into what seemed like an insubstantial harness and hooked a worryingly small set of wheels over the wire. A piece of tire was supposed to be the break. I hurtled off into oblivion before I could think (as it turns out this is standard high spec equipment).
After a few seconds of abject terror and a tree that threatened to bring me to an abrupt halt, I started to enjoy the experience despite a vague concern about the ground, which was no where to be seen. Apparently my momentum wasn’t sufficient so I had to haul myself for the last few meters to the receiving platform then it was back again. Apart from my legs heading in a different direction from the rest of me, the view was stupendous, unbroken forest as far as I could see.
Ben dangling from his zipline
Sharyn and Ben, your hosts have been working in development in Cambodia since the 90’s but as they say on their website;
‘Seeing Cambodia losing its forests at an alarming rate (the worst in the world right now!) was disheartening and seeing (and attending!) all the workshops talking and talking about the problems but not actually doing anything was getting, annoying, frankly. They were often talking about forest that was no longer there. People just needed to do something… why not us?
Their mission is to preserve the Phnom Tnout community forest and protect its furry and feathered biodiversity while educating the local community as to its value. The Community’s involvement and employment shows villagers how they financially gain from the project.
Ben and Sharyn are doing something wonderful in this little and increasingly rare forested pocket of Cambodia. We can contribute by having an amazing experience in the jungle and directly contributing to its preservation.
Getting There!
Indochine Exploration is very pleased to promote and work with BeTreed. Its an exciting journey to get there which we can organize in a 4WD with the option of cycling the Oxcart Trail on a mountain bike.
Profits from this trip will be given to BeTreed.
300km later back where I started from, Little Red Fox
by Nick | Oct 31, 2016 | Blog
Prek Toal by Way of Phnom Kraum
All adventures start with The Little Red Fox Coffee Shop and the morning crew; Jady this time with temple water management people and Darryl the Angkorian historian.
Feathercraft on top of Dy’s electric blue Highlander. Our Solar kayaks, Lors, Bunthy, Visoth and me inside. Another latte then pick up Buntha on the way to the lake.
Our route decided last week as we had climbed out of REP Airport on our way to SIN. 5000 foot above Phnom Kraum we could see pockets of bush surrounded by a sea of water and not the usual other way round. Direct channels lay clear to the open lake and onto the floating village of Prek Toal.
We launched where the water lapped the hill. Bunthy together with Lors, Visoth and Buntha. Laden with dinner and drink. 2 bladders of wine and merlot in the cool box for me.
From left to right; Visoth & Buntha, me, Lors and Bunthy
I came with my Werner paddles so light I barely felt them kissing the water as I effortlessly slid across the lake. The 2 Solars exploded with muscle like a moon rocket launch then stalled as Bunthy paddled one way and Lors the other. Buntha and Visoth quickly found a rhythm. Fizzing with excitement we set off for Prek Toal.
The lake was not quite so high that we could paddle unimpeded. Lead by lines of vegetation and fishing lines caught in the Solar fins, we zigzagged across the floodplain.
Past midday and Bunthy running on empty. ‘When are we going to eat?’ He whimpered, while Buntha and Visoth the buffalo paddled on regardless of hunger, fishing lines and fences.
We entered the forest at the edge of the lake and moored to the branches beneath the canopy near the tops of the now submerged trees. We perched on the branches and ate lunch. Lors the gibbon swung from an outlying limb.
In the canopy forest at the edge of the lake
Swinging down from the trees we made ready for the lake crossing just as the wind died and left barely a ripple on the dull grey expanse of water. The calm made a mockery of my safety briefing. ‘Tie down the equipment, stick together and wear life jackets.’
Above and below, Phnom Kraum behind, Prek Toal ahead
Lors inevitably started the horseplay by sitting up on the cool box at the back of his and Bunthy’s
kayak nearly capsizing them both. They couldn’t get a rhythm going but his massive muscles powered through their lack of technique.
A huge cloud lay heavy over Prek Toal cumulating and shifting like an upset stomach. All the while darkening until the 3 telephone masts that marked out the village, punctured its nebulous vapour releasing a wind that held us stationary and blew off my Akubra hat.
Arriving at Buntha’s pool hall
Bunthy and Lors’s calls for 5 minute breaks were becoming more frequent and faint as Buntha and Visoth, apparently unfatigued paddled on while I just sort of glided.
The whiffs of decomposing fish from the prahoc platforms and the reverberating staccato of the 2 stroke longboat engines reached us before we got to the floating shacks at the edge of the village. We paddled between the more substantial houses buoyed up on clumps of bamboo lining the main channel.
Buntha’s pool hall, floating garden, crocodile cages and Mother in Law’s house lay opposite. ‘Do you want a shower Nick? Buntha asked me. ‘Not in your shit!’ The lake is high so well diluted but the crocodiles and Buntha are defecating on 1 side of the house while the family bathe on the other. I got back in the kayak and paddled away from the village with a bar of soap, managing to bathe standing on the branches of a submerged tree.
The boys played pool, I scribbled notes then the family emerged from Mother in Law’s house with our dinner. Bunthy had bought plastic skins of cheap vinegary red wine, I’d put a couple of bottles of Chilean merlot in the cool box, which rapidly disappeared when Buntha found out how much nicer they tasted. We finished dinner. The alcohol combined with the day’s exercise, rounded off by 5 mg of Valium left me contentedly numbed. I turned off the Mother in Law’s radio, lay down next to the crocodiles and fell asleep.
Saying goodbye to Buntha’s Family (excluding the Mother in Law)
A horrific fire had burned for day’s leaving half of the Core Bird Reserve reduced to charcoal. We paddled between the blackened branches saddened. The irrepressible Lors quickly diverted our attention and the presence of any wildlife with the continual noise he emitted.
The fire was an environmental disaster but still the floodplain is a wonderful and alien world of water and blissful quiet, excepting Lors.
Dy was waiting with his ice cold Highlander at Maichrey. It was past noon so rice was the priority. We diverted via the Baray now swollen with rain and a bamboo platform over the water for road kill chicken rice and tamarind paste. A look of total exhaustion on the boy’s faces. It had been fun!
Exhausted waiting for lunch at the West Baray
We are very pleased to take our guests on a day trip by motorboat to the floating village of Prek Toal with an early morning boat journey in the seasonally flooded forests of The Core Bird Reserve. On the return we explore the village by kayak with lunch on a floating platform then paddle to Buntha’s house and meet his family (and crocodiles).
If you have a bit more time an overnight stay means you start to get a glimpse of what life on the lake is really like. And we’d be delighted to paddle with you all the way if you’re up for the challenge!
by Nick | May 3, 2016 | Blog
THE NORTH WEST PASSAGE Our mission to boldly go where no kayak had ever been before.
As an avid reader of the Indochine Exploration Blogs you will be aware of my sexual fantasies around water management in Angkor. I am not alone and discovered over a latte at Little Red Fox another closet water fetishist Jady Smith.
Jady represents the New Zealand Government in their support for restoration of the infrastructure that allowed the world’s greatest empire of it’s time to flourish.
I had been lucky enough to explore and understand – a little, Damian Evan’s explanation of how the Angkorians built canals, reservoirs and diverted river systems to make Angkor inhabitable 12 months of the year a thousand years ago.
Siem Reap is no more hospitable now, well yes you can get a latte and a glass of wine but mid-March we’re 3 months into the dry season with no rain, temperatures over forty and if you’re lucky a dribble of water when you turn the tap on, the problem is even more prescient.
There’s also the implicit threat of what water mismanagement did to the Angkorian Empire – caused it’s downfall so the theory goes.
The site of the Angkorian Bridge where water is now diverted from the town to The North Baray (photo taken during dry season when water a lot lower)
In an attempt to mitigate all of that and return the Angkor Park to it’s original state and so raise the ground water level to support the temple foundations, a canal had been cut from the Siem Reap River North of the Park to the North Baray Reservoir and on to the Great West Baray.
A mission needs a plan and today’s master architect Jady Smith devised a wicked scheme, we’d launch the kayaks beside the dam on the Siem Reap River and paddle. ‘What next JD?’ I eagerly enquired. ‘We’ll see when we get there’, ?
The dam diverting the river had caused it to flood the surrounding countryside creating a maze of waterways, which we spent a happy half hour exploring. Not wanting to pour scorn on our plan but feeling slightly cheated if getting lost was the main aim, we decided to try again and retraced our route back to the dam where we’d started.
By following the current we found the channel we’d been looking for. An ugly scar across the landscape 12 months ago when it was dug now a naturally landscaped water feature of beauty.
The North West Channel
Delicate yellow saray flowers floated proud of the waterlily leaves. Kingfishers flitted from the overhanging boughs and cormorants and darters dried their wings on the skeleton branches of dead trees.
The current had caught us and carried the kayaks towards the West Baray, I thought but Jady’s plan had a different destination in store. We reached a cross roads in the channel; right towards to Angkor Crau Village and the West Baray and left where the current lead to the open sluice on the North Baray and hence to Neak Pean and Preah Khan Temples in the heart of the Park.
A welcoming committee of Apsara temple workers had assembled on the banks to greet us
And wanted a ride
Todays trip had been a very special adventure and I was humbled to have paddled through the middle of the ancient cities of Angkor, a common place boat ride for the inhabitants a thousand years ago but not oft repeated since.
by Nick | Apr 14, 2016 | Blog
In Search of a White Elephant (or a Smiling Albino)
Our quest for the day was Boeung P’Rieng, a lake in amidst flooded forests on the edge of The Great Tonle Sap that will be subsumed when the back flow begins and the water levels rise.
Previous attempts had started in much the same way though today was Wednesday so it was Sister Srei not Little Red Fox, where we congregated for the essential injection of caffein before setting off on our quest.
The first try with Jady was thwarted by 2 flat tyres and a serious compromise on the sense of direction front. I emerged from the forest beside the tourist boat channel at Chong Khneas, no where near Boeung P’Rieng or Chreav Village. The second with Taylor got closer. We reached the trips zenith in the corner of a big rice field where it met the channel leading to Boeung P’Rieng, so we were told in translation by the family who had a house there.
This morning’s adventure was a more serious affair; Buntha, Lors and I were joined by Bo, our ubiquitous boatman and Mr Ly, the managing director no less for the Chreav Village Information Centre. In his spare time he had taken on the role of promoting the lake as a possible source of employment for the Chreav villagers in who’s commune it is situated. We assumed this might mean he knew where it was.
Lors receiving the tour guide treatment from Ly
As part of the party political broadcast we were taken to a well managed market garden in a pretty part of Chreav village where basil and other herbs were grown. An oxcart was included in the agenda but our bicycles gave us the excuse to continue in our search for the elusive lake.
A water stop. Left to right; Buntha, Taylor, Ly, Lors & Bo.
Bo’s plans for differentiation in the tourism industry became evident as Taylor and I became his unwitting models as we cycled between paddy fields behind the plume of white dust thrown up by his motorbike.
Our cares started to slip away as the horizon stretched to the distance. We spotted sandpipers on the moist earth and a Pied Kingfisher over the irrigation ditch. Two pranticoles skulked amongst the rice stubble. The impenetrable bush revealed when the Tonle Sap recedes had been cleared to make a path to where we assumed the lake would be.
Buntha and Lors cycling through the seasonally flooded forest
Circling pelicans soaring high confirmed that third time lucky and after a patch of proper forest we met our welcoming committee and The Lake.
Loading our bikes on board
Five years ago Bo had tried to persuade us to send bird watchers to what was designated a fish conservation area, hence the birds but as with many a well intentioned project in Cambodia, the fishing rights to the fish protection area were sold.
And setting off to explore the lake
Mr Ly accord to him was now the lakes protector and the fishing traps hauled out of the water and piled high to be burnt suggested that this time it might be more than words.
Wallowing Water Buffalo in the shallow waters of Boeung P’Rieng
The community protected area covers 300 hectares and the lake itself twenty though that must change by the day. As we nosed our way through the sage green algae the scale was hard to fathom. Pools were funnelled through channels to broad expanses of muddy suspension where buffalo wallowed pecked clean of ticks by white egrets, a prefect focal for a photo that never happened as they flapped off before I could press the shutter.
A cool forest lunch-spot
Bo’s enthusiasm for the birds was infectious as we struggled to keep up with the calls of new species; Black-headed Ibis, Open-bills everywhere, Painted Storks, prehistoric pelicans sailing like galleons, cormorants and a Grey-headed Fishing Eagle lazily flew off as we entered a new lagoon. Above all were the great flocks of duck, Spot-billed and Whistling, much greater than we’d seen at Prek Toal and only compared with the reservoir at Ang Trapaeng Thmor.
Our destination proved to be a patch of cool forest cleared by the shade of the canopy. The perfect lunch spot after a mornings meandering by kayak.
Birds, bikes, boats and Nick
I remembered that we had been able to drive our motorbikes here but now the route was cut by the channel that offered our only way out. Our impressively muscled boatman manoeuvred us along the twists and turns of the waterway between the trees and pushed our path through the congregated water hyacinth.
Bo releasing a Water Cock
Something fluttered in a fish trap. A bird was caught in the cage. Bo’s good at this and confidently reached in and pulled out the distressed Water Cock, which calmed in his hands. In quasi moment of religious release he cast the creature into the sky to regain its freedom, whereupon it nosed dived into the next fishing trap. There was a happy ending as it swam off underwater.
Disembarking from the Water Hyacinth Channel
The Floodplain around Phnom Kraum now a buffalo haven
Somehow Bo’s motorbike was where we disembarked then I recognised the community member who’d said goodbye and figured it out!
We set off across the dry paddy, which even in these dry El Nino years will be a meter under the flood in 4 months time. Where there was water the buffalo wallowed. I racked my brains to recognise the path we cycled on. Surely I’d been here? We’d turned off too late, it dawned on me as we crossed a bridge over the Siem Reap River on its way to Phnom Kraum and Chong Khneas, the ugly tourist port.
Next was a promotional detour engineered by Bo, who sort of seemed to be taking over the day. A new homestay venture, complete with wi-fi and a bar. Surely that makes it a guesthouse? I thought but obviously Bo reckoned that business lay with a homestay and the activities there with as now modelled by Taylor and Nick.
Recharging after the morning’s exertions
More to the point and definitely on cue, Mr Doitch an Indochine Exploration driver had cooked us lunch, chicken and cabbage, chnang! (delicious).
Boeung P’Rieng is a birding spectacle on the scale of the world famous Prek Toal 15km as the adjutant flies to the South. And a testament to the work of My Ly and his community members in enforcing the protection of the fish conservation area that attracts the birds.
Indochine Exploration in partnership with Smiling Albino is pleased to support this project with an out of the world adventure combining combining bikes, boats, birds and a paddy field Jeep tour (pulling apart a chicken carcass is optional).
