by Nick | Nov 28, 2013 | Blog
Yes he was coming again back to the island where Kavita had saved his life. She had sat on the balcony with the badly wounded dog gently pressing her palms onto his broken thighs, soothing the fear and pain and easing the shock from his accident. The day he shat a foot long turd we knew there was hope. But a puppy’s memory is short lived, he growled ungraciously from his territory on the veranda of our hut when Kavita came to say hello. Now running on the beach with Manus, a full cure from when he’d lain prostate on the balcony.
Not really a recce for ICE (Indochine Exploration) more a premature Christmas holiday. We’re hoping to be too busy to get away in December. Whatever we do for ourselves now means we get better at doing it for our guests, starting with the taxi ride to the coast.
Manus running on the beach at Koh Thmei with LokLak
Shaken, stirred and thoroughly weary after 9 hours in the car (ICE customers will only have a 3 hour ride from Phnom Penh). The taxi driver’s son deposited us at Koh Chang, a fishing village rotting away in the middle of a swamp of mangroves and mud, where we waited for the boat to Koh-Thmei.
Hell? Rubbish, human waste, a large decomposing eel added to the stink of rotting fish. Long leech like creatures squirmed in the tepid bilge that swilled round the wooden pilings of the pier.
Or Heaven? Above us kites soared over the photogenic village, spying their catch a hundred meters below.
Koh Chang Fishing Village
Like a jewel catching a beam of light a turquoise and orange kingfisher flashed by. Pure white egrets contrasted the thick dark green foliage of the mangroves as they poised on the mud ready to pierce their prey.
The stakes changed as we got closer to Koh Thmei, heaven up and hell down. The water cleared and started to bubble with life. The bow wave sent a spray of spume like a moisturizer across our faces while LokLak strained at his leash trying to catch the water. Ahead the dramatic silhouette of Bokor Mountain plunged a thousand metres into the sea then reared up the steep slopes of Phu Quoc, the Vietnamese island to the South. Manus spotted a dolphin, its dorsal fin and black back clearly visible as it surfaced to breath.
There’s a shangri la moment as the boat pulls up to the shore and Kavita and Michael wave from the beach. The engine stopped so I threw LokLak overboard, which he took as a green light to go crazy, spraying sand and woofs as we disembarked.
Sunset at Koh Thmei
The sea was calm, the sun shining so we set off the next morning for our first kayaking adventure to the Southern end of Koh Say island a couple of kilometers opposite the resort. I have an unfair advantage in the form of a Feathercraft, which cuts through the waves like an ocean clipper made even more efficient by the rudder that keeps me in a straight line. Dean labored away in the very worthy but much slower inflatable Gumotex, while I watched a pair of sea eagles fishing in the channel between the 2 islands. We paddled parallel to a perfect beach, a crescent of white sand to where we knew of a submarine reef.
South facing Beach on Koh Thmei
The sea had been calm for a few days so the visibility was clear enough to see the seabed even as we floated 6 meters above. Shoals of small fish swam past bulbous lumps of brown coral. I duck-dived to watch a massive hermit crab laboriously dragging his shell / home out of harm’s way. We saw no big fish but there was a lot of life in the myriad of shapes and colors. Back on the beach we opened Kavita’s cool box, slurped cold beer and munched on tomato cookies (AKA fish cakes). A big house had been built behind the beach by some speculative bong thom* securing his rights to the bay, a shrewd move given the stunning view over a thousand meter private beach.
*Bong Thom lit big brother, usually a high-ranking politician
The sea stayed flat so we headed out to sea and back across the channel to Koh Thmei and a South facing beach exposed to the ocean so off limits unless the water was still. Another perfect arc of sand, wilder than before, the vegetation was bent double by the prevailing wind. Dean pottered in the shallows, I paddled to the next headland where a freshwater stream emerged from the forest. Two fishermen cut wood beside their camp, a sheet of tarpaulin across a couple of poles, a boy in underpants posed on a rock.
Dean & I supping Pol Roger on The Koh Thmei Pier
As the sun sank behind us the horse’s back of Koh Say blackened against a pink and gold sunset, we swung our legs sitting on the pier sipping Pol Roger gazing into the sky while wavelets washed the coarse sand below.
North facing Beach on Koh Say
The next day, a paddle to the Northern end of Koh Say and a circumnavigation of the island stopping off to snorkel on route. More of the same; stunning deserted beaches lapped by an aquamarine sea and fringed with blue black forest in dazzling noon light.
Phu Quoc Island filled the horizon a few kilometers away once I rounded the next promontory from where we had lunch on the rocks. I could see a fishing village and paddled between Vietnamese squid boats illegally moored in the shelter of this Khmer Island. A fierce current ran between a rocky out-crop a few hundred meters out and the shore. Michael had said it was good for snorkeling and the view from my kayak looked promising but the flow was too strong without a pick up boat. So many places to be explored, who knows if they’ll be here the next time we can brave the 10 hour trial to Koh Thmei.
Islet off the Eastern Coast of Koh Say
Koh Thmei is the last stop on the ICE South West Cambodia adventure and we think you’ll curse yourself if you don’t add an extension onto the 2 nights we’ve scheduled in our trip.
by Nick | Oct 19, 2013 | Blog
The incredibly rare milky adjutant lived in Prek Toal and it was my mission to save it even before I got to Cambodia and understood what it was. Small details such as there isn’t a milky adjutant, it’s a Milky Stork and a Greater Adjutant didn’t detract from my zeal, Prek Toal was the at the heart of why I’d come.
Greater Adjutant Prek Toal. Photo Sam Veasna Center
Prek Toal did not disappoint. A two hundred square kilometer water world of open forest emerging from The Lake, it seemed untouched and unvisited. A haven for the flocks of large birds that flew past our boat; pelicans soaring high on the thermals or sailing galleon like across the lake. Oriental Darters and cormorants flying in formation, plunging into the water with their spear like beaks to pluck out fish. And the storks perfectly poised in the tree canopy, ruled over by the largest of them all, the Greater Adjutant. Over 200 species have been recorded inside the core bird reserve so every size, shape and colour has adapted to take advantage of the hierarchy in the flooded forest.
Prek Toal Village is fantastic in its own right, hundreds of wooden houses floating on clumps of bamboo clustered along the river banks in the dry season when the lake is low or spread out into the forest during the flood. The village economy revolves around fishing; subsistence for the poorer families in the floating shacks. Midscale for those that can afford the apparatus and the bribes to fish inside the core bird reserve. And commercial where migrants work for the Bong Thoms with fishing rights to the Tonle Sap Lake. In February the fish fences fringe the flooded forest to trap the fish as they emerge from their sheltered nurseries beneath the trees.
Life on the lake is dictated by the annual pulse of water surging down the Mekong River, silt caught in the current is carried from China, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos and deposited where the water slows South of Phnom Penh. The raised riverbed changes the direction of the flow from South to the sea now North to the great Tonle Sap Lake, filling it like a bath until the King pulls the plug at Bon Om Teuk, The Water Festival and allows the river to regain its normal route.
The flood brings life in the form of fish that swarm into the flooded forests of Prek Toal to breed, spawn and grow providing much of Cambodia’s protein.
What can we say to our guests when we take them across the lake from Siem Reap to The Core Bird Reserve and Prek Toal Village? We can explain the hydrological phenomena at the heart of the ecosystem and describe the adaptations both human and natural but it’s best to let people see for themselves and watch the wonder of this other worldly place work its magic.
Cormorants on fishing fences on route to Prek Toal. Photo Nick Butler
That’s the scene set for our trip with Discovery Magazine aboard the Amanbala to capture the essence of what makes this place so special. Sally was there to look beautiful, Sam was there to photograph her looking beautiful, Daniel was there to write about her looking beautiful. The core bird reserve and the Amanbala with logistical assistance from Indochine Exploration was the reason she looked beautiful.
It’s not easy to take a boat inside the Core Bird reserve but Buntha and Bo persuaded the conservation team in Prek Toal to let us in. So we sailed through the trees to where Wildlife Conservation Society has built platforms in the canopy to monitor and protect the bird colonies. The water was at its height so we could see the submerged vegetation and the fish that swam between the leaves beneath us. It was too early in the year for the star of the show, the milky adjutant AKA greater but the trees were laden with darters and cormorants and their creamy white chicks.
We paddled back in our kayaks over the yellow mats of saray, a tiny floating flower to where the water hyacinth clogs the channels into Prek Toal.
Kayaking at the edge of the Core Bird Reserve from the Amanbala. Photo Nick Butler
Clearing a route through the weeds we made it to The Sangke River and paddled across to The Saray Platform where the women of the village weave the dried stems of this invasive alien into handicrafts that are sold for the benefit of the poorest families in the village. There’s also a restaurant, you don’t have any choice but it’s fish fresh from the river below with vegetables and fruit traded from Siem Reap and cooked by villagers taught in town at The Sala Bai Cooking school as part of the pro-poor initiative.
Women from Prek Toal Village weaving the stems of water hyacinth into handicrafts on the Saray Platform. Photo Nick Butler
We were sailing on the Amanbala an aquatic extension of The Amansara, so we forgo the fish and rice, heading back through the hyacinth to Prek Longon, where she waited for us.
The kayaks stowed and all aboard we stretched out luxuriously across the day beds on the upper deck, shaded by a canvas awning while the staff laid out our lunch boxes of pomelo salad and prawns, guacamole and pitta bread, cold roast chicken and homemade mayonnaise then fruit and brownies, all complemented by a chilled chenin blanc.
We’d been to the ends of the earth, a forest of flooded trees circled by flocks of birds. We’d paddled through a village untamed by time, as mesmerized by the villagers as they were by us, then back to the boat where cold towels and fresh lemonade was waiting.
Kayaks stowed on the Amanbala. Photo Nick Butler
Indochine Exploration in partnership with The Amansara creates a very special day for Amansara guests. Prek Toal and The Core Bird Reserve are also Indochine Exploration’s flagship adventure, uniquely exploring this pristine environment by kayak with conservation experts.
by Nick | Sep 7, 2013 | Blog
Lok Lak
My name is Lok-Lak, you can see a picture of me in the boat with my Master Nicky, who’s drinking beer and looks silly in a plastic rain coat on the way to Phnom Da. I’m a country dog from Angkor. Manus found me when I was a very little puppy and took me to Nicky, who said I could stay.
This is the story of my adventures with Nicky and Manus and their friend Alistair who I like although he calls me a pest and Christian, I liked him as well coz he showed me respect and tickled my ears, across the South West of Cambodia.
Nicky gets a bit grumpy sometimes and when Kong our van driver kept going the wrong way Nicky got angry with him. ‘Kong go right,’ ‘right?’ ‘Yes go right,’ ‘ok,’ ‘Kong why are you turning left?’ ‘This way?’ ‘No you’ve passed the turning now turn round and go back.’ Nicky said that he had no sense of direction.
It’s a long way from Siem Reap to Takeo but by taking the short cuts and in-spite of Kong’s completely random choice of routes we made it in 8 hours to the sleepy provincial capitol situated beside Mekong floodplain.
We passed by the hilltop spires of Oudong, the former Cambodian capitol and a grissly Khmer Rouge Killing Field written about by Francois Bizot in The Gate, which would break the journey as a lunch stop and point of interest if we had guests travelling with us.
Alistair, Christian and Manus laughing at me getting on the boat to Phnom Da
We had no booking in Takeo and of course Lok-Lak but the potential of 3 rooms with another reserved for when Michelle got here meant there wasn’t a problem with the dog. So after checking in we set off with Mr Slim for Phnom Da.
It looked a bit dodgy to me but I have to look after Nicky even if he and his friends Alistair and Christian had put on polka dot pieces of plastic, its only water, da! So I sat down in the bottom of the boat as Mr Slim made a big noise with the engine and made the boat lurch but we seemed to be going fast. There was lots of spray, whoosh, so I tried to catch it.
Nipple Mountain and Phnom Da
Nicky didn’t need his polka dot plastic coz the dark grey clouds heavy with rain held off as we flat-planed across the shallow flood water towards the nipple mountains and beyond that Vietnam. I’m not usually let off the lead because there’s so much to explore that I forget my job of looking after Nicky but today I could run round the hill with the Temple on top, Phnom Da.
I had my dinner in the guest house, which I was going to share but Nicky wanted river lobster instead so we went to a restaurant above the water where they all made satisfied noises so I suppose the food was good. I wasn’t very well behaved because they didn’t give me any.
Phnom Da temple
The next day it was Svai Leu then Chambok in the Kirirom National Park via the scenic route (with a quarry detour when we lost the way completely). It was supposed to be a short cut after visiting Phnom Tamau in the morning but it would have been quicker to go back to Phnom Penh.
Nicky told Kong we were going to Chambok near Kirirom but Kong found a Chambok near Takeo so we ended up where we’d started.
The South East – North West passage. Khmer life as it exists for most Cambodians, not destitute or pathetic but food secure. Wooden houses with tidy yards shaded by coconut palm and fruit trees.
Phnom Tamau, which serves as a zoo for Cambodia is an animal refuge where animals confiscated from hunters and the illegal pet trade are rehabilitated with the aim of release though in fact the environmental shit that’s going on in Cambodia means that most of them will stay there for the rest of their lives.
There are some small cages but the animals are well looked after and most have plenty of space. The bear enclosures managed by Free the Bears are the centerpiece and home for the Asiatic Black Bear and the Sun Bear.
Cub rearing program, part of Free The Bears Project
There’s leopard, leopard cats, elephant and otters, Sambar, Eld’s Deer, Banteng, Gaur and Serow. But above all there are 6 tigers. I strained to see any when I walked up to the wire with Lok-Lak then looked up and found we were being watched by a magnificent animal lying lazily on top of a boulder, even Lok-Lak looked subdued.
This is not true. I was not scared of the tiger in his cage but I didn’t like the monkeys who growled at me then showed me their bottoms.
Long-tailed Macaque
Hairy-nosed otters
Kirirom on the road to Sihanoukville is the wild frontier town to the Cardamon Mountains where we heading, in particular Chambok a collection of small once forest villages beneath the mountain and a long way down a muddy track.
Water and mud, 2 of my favorite things as long as I don’t get cold, and being off the lead but when we got to where Nicky and Manus were going to have dinner, what about me! It was a bit scary, there were a lot of legs under the table and a lot of noise above so I growled at some backpackers. Nicky passed some rice and pork and chicken under the table so I felt better. So did Nicky coz Michelle had brought lots of wine.
40 meter waterfall in Chambok Community Forest
Chambok is a community based eco-tourist initiative started 10 years ago to provide an alternative income for the villagers, cooking, guiding and offering accommodation to visitors instead of cutting the forest. Rice had provided a sustainable livelihood for Chambok until the local population was displaced from their land when the government was routing out the remnants of the Khmer Rouge in the eighties. Now about 200 foreign tourists a month stay in the homestays, eat food prepared by women from the village in the restaurant where Lok-Lak was biting the ankles of the backpackers, and go with local guides on hikes through the forest to a 40 meter high waterfall. This provides direct and indirect employment to 700 villagers and has resulted in the forest growing back.
Nicky and Manus didn’t wake up and Christian was snoring so much I couldn’t sleep so I went downstairs and chased chickens. I haven’t done this before but I’d definitely add it to the list if Nicky wants to sell his adventures. A not very nice lady then Nicky and Manus chased me, which might have been part of the adventure but I got the feeling I had done something wrong.
Ox-carts to Chambok Community Restaurant
Back on the road we were heading for Koh Kong, there was only one direction so Kong couldn’t get lost.
Rainbow Lodge is perched on a hillside in what appears to be impenetrable jungle overlooking the river. It was shrouded in mist rising from the forest when we got there. Women skulled wooden fishing boats across the still black water studded by exploding raindrops. A hornbill slowly flapped across. It’s the rainy season so there’s a lot of water, dark swirls of stout with a creamy froth.
I wanted to play and swim and play so Nicky let me off the lead and I met my first friend Niko. Of course as the elder dog I had to teach him what to do but there were a lot of muddy puddles where we could wrestle. I played so much that I was as tired as when Manus ties me up in Nicky’s old underpants so I didn’t feel well and was a bit grumpy. When Nicky chained me to the veranda I was especially grumpy because I watched them eat without me.
Boat Landing at Rainbow Lodge
I’m a country dog so I have to protect myself and when Nicky came back I thought it was him that made me have pain in my legs, did I tell you I had a very bad accident when I was a small puppy? I had to protect myself from the hurt so I bit him. Oohps that wasn’t good, I knew right away that Nicky and Manus were very angry with me. I didn’t get any cuddles and they ignored me, I could see them talking about me? I didn’t understand but knew I’d done wrong. So in the morning I was especially nice and even ate some of the nasty dog food from the tin though I think Nicky’s a bit frightened I’ll bite him again because he’s still not talking to me.
The next day Christian’s red kayak gave a scale to the vast vista of tumbling cliffs clad in vivid rainforest green.
There were breathtaking views as the river wound round the escarpment to reveal a white wall of water cascading over the rocks. 2 hours disappeared as we scrambled and slipped over boulders beneath the falls. When we bring guests here, we’ll make a day of it and cook up a BBQ on the riverbank.
Christian and Michelle were tired from the previous day’s kayaking but we set off on our second Koh Kong Adventure to The Peam Krasaup 20,000 Ha Mangove Forest near Koh Kong Town. There’s a concrete slab boardwalk through the eerily twisted forest that looked it should feature in a Tim Burton film. Contorted trees raised on a twisted mat of prehensile roots. It was low tide so we watched mudskippers below us, gulping and swiveling their eyes.
We scrambled up a watchtower on the far side of the channel. The view was of a landscape monochromatic green in color, panes of mangroves bisected by brown silty seawater channels. We followed a small stream in our kayaks leading deep into the gloomy forest, the only way to explore this otherwise impenetrable environment.
Christian kayaking in the mangrove forest at Peam Krasaup
We could see the trees mass of supporting roots rising out of the mud and hear a frustratingly unidentifiable clacking coming from within. At first we thought the noise was made by crabs clicking their claws but later agreed it was most likely bivalves slamming their shells shut.
Aside from a couple of kingfishers there seemed to be disappointingly little life, that was until, ahead of Alistair and Christian, I rounded a point in the trees to see the snout of an otter like the ones we’d seen at Phnom Tamau, raised high enough to watch me. I drifted too close so he dived, reemerging between the roots of a mangrove.
We turned off the road to the Thai Border, down to the river and a crab restaurant above the water. We sucked out the succulent white flesh from the shells, while LokLak made a big mess under the table eating everything we didn’t.
I was forgiven, cuddles in the van and a strange walk above some mud, which I wanted to jump in. I’m not allowed to go in the kayaks though I like boats and catching water, because Manus says my claws will scratch. So I went with Michelle and Manus to do boring things in town, like drink tea. What if Nicky needed me? There were some strange fishy things on the mud that needed hunting. I was hungry, just tinned muck, which I ate to make up for being bad before so when they started eating fish I couldn’t keep quiet, that’s when delicious crunchy fish was put under the table for me. This was my best eating adventure so far.
Replete with exercise we headed back to Rainbow Lodge to ready ourselves for the next stage and Lok-Lak was hungry again.
Mr Kong had stayed the night at Tatai on a mat on the floor for $6 so he’d be ready for us when we landed beneath the bridge. Christian and Michelle we’re going to New York and Paris respectively, so they in somewhat of a contrast were catching the Virak Bunthoeurn Bus complete with constant karaoke to Phnom Penh.
By lunchtime Lok-Lak, Manus, Alistair and I were jumping off another boat onto a sandy beach at Koh Thmei (lit. New Island). The sea lapped on the shore, the soft wash of water gently soothing us to relax. The magnificence of the dripping jungle plunging into the Tatai River aside, the sea was the perfect way to finish the trip.
Lok-Lak settled onto the balcony and woofed at anyone rude enough to intrude his territory including Kavita who’d saved his life the last time we were on Koh Thmei.
Our bungalow at Koh Thmei
There were snakes and crabs, a horse and a very grumpy dog I had to protect Manus and Nicky. The strange lady smelled of all these things so I felt my hackles bristling and an urge to bark, I’m a dog! She came back later and was very gentle with me so I was polite.
Five days of continuous rain had given way to grey skies then a suggestion of the sun so we assembled the kayaks and paddled across the channel that separates Koh Thmei from Koh Say (Horse Island), where our kayaks had been tagged by dolphins on the last trip.
The view from our bungalow
A pair of sea eagles soared above the forest until a Brahminy Kite dared to enter their airspace. We were then treated to an aerobatic display as the eagles saw off the intruder.
Koh Thmei is the prefect antidote for most of the worries I can think of. It doesn’t matter what you do; swim, kayak, stroll along the beach or just chill on the balcony, time passes until you’re ready for lunch or maybe dinner. My only regret was we were only staying 2 nights.
Day 2 and we were heading for the North Eastern end of Koh Thmei opposite to where we’d been the day before. Mikael, Kavita’s husband and the joint owner of the resort had told us about a sheltered bay with a coral reef.
When we rounded the point to the bay the wind was whipping foam off the top of the waves and churning the water so there wasn’t much point in carrying on. We headed back to the relative shelter of a small rocky cove just around the point.
Paddling across the channel that morning we’d caught a cuttlefish missing most of it’s tentacles but still just alive. Alistair cleaned it, Manus lit a fire and I barbecued it on washed up wands of bamboo. When it was about to catch fire we cut off strips of the pure white flesh, fresh squid came to mind but ‘not really delicious,’ said Manus.
That didn’t matter, had we been shipwrecked survivors on the deserted island of Koh Thmei we’d have survived the first night. And with that comforting thought tucked into Kavita’s fish cakes and drank Mikael’s beer.
A squall was heading towards us so we quickly packed up and paddled close to the coast until we were opposite the Koh Thmei resort before making the kilometer crossing. Dehydrated, exhausted but elated from an amazing day capped by cooking a cuttlefish even if it was inedible.
Koh Thmei was a very nice place. It would have been more fun if I didn’t have to stay on the lead but the grumpy dog did look mean. You can chase crab’s, catch the waves, try and bite the villagers that come to cut the trees – Nicky said I was a good dog when I did this, or just lie on the verandah until somebody brings you dinner and that was good too, no more dog food.
The appendix to Lok-Lak’s adventures across the South West of Cambodia was a night at Knai Bang Chatt in Kep, a former French colonial beach resort. An exquisite hotel spilling over its walls into the sea below like the large infinity pool in the garden.
At first the man at the posh place in Kep said I couldn’t come but Nicky was nice to him so I was allowed to stay. I could see I had to be on my best behavior and wasn’t allowed to run round the garden like my friend Emma, she’s a posh dog! But I recommend the rooms, there was a special sofa for dogs and lots of blankets in case I got cold.
Nick or Alistair will be pleased to take guests on this 7 night 8 day adventure across the South West of Cambodia with the option of an extended stay at Koh Thmei and / or a bit of luxury at Knei Bang Chatt along the coast in Kep (with or without Lok-Lak).
by Nick | Aug 25, 2013 | Blog
Dean and I were on a recce trip for Amansara; cycling, kayaking and riding the famous Bamboo Train but it had to be done in a day so that the guests could be showered and ready to dine in the Aman Restaurant that night.
Just 2 hours from Siem Reap, Battambang once the second largest city is often overlooked in the rush to Angkor. Situated on the banks of the Sangke River in a rich and lush agricultural landscape the city was colonized by the French in 1910, who built the old shop houses and colonial villas that together with the traditional wooden Khmer houses make Battambang the faded architectural gem it is today.
A 6am start and we were on the Sisophon Road heading West to Thailand. 3 hours later we were sipping lattes down St 1½ at Knyei Café, the best coffee in Cambodia from Master Barrista Untac.
Riverfront of shop-houses in Battambang
Mounting our bikes Dean, Manus and I cycled out of the back streets of Battambang past the shop houses along the riverfront to the stone bridge opposite the Governor’s mansion and into the countryside.
Governors mansion
Our route followed successively smaller paths along the riverbank through Buddhist and Cham villages nestling amongst fruit and palm trees. This is the fruit basket of Cambodia blessed with a fertile soil and lush landscape.
Battambang province countryside
We crossed the Sangke River now in full spate with floodwater from the Cardamon Mountains, on its way to help fill the Tonle Sap Lake. One of these days I’m going to kayak from Battambang to Siem Reap. A rickety swing bridge brought us out on the road to Phnom Banan, a pretty Angkorian Temple atop a mountain gouged with bat caves.
Swing Bridge across the Sangke River
We stopped for grape juice and ginger at the Battambang Vinery and asked permission from the old Khmer Madame with twinkly eyes to look for a picnic spot in her vineyards. We found a grassy glade shaded by mango trees near the river, the perfect spot for a picnic and made ready to launch our kayaks for the journey back to town.
A vineyard next to the river
A group of ladies had assembled near the car and were chatting with Veasna our driver. Apparently there were whirlpools, which could be avoided if you knew which side of the river you should be on but were probably an adventure our guests wouldn’t need to experience in depth. We cycled back to the rickety bridge and launched there.
A little wary of the current to start but we relaxed when we realized it was doing our job for us. Carrying the kayaks with the current past the villages we’d cycled through and life along the river; boys in small boats casting fishing nets, women washing at the waters edge, old men leading buffalo to wallow.
Dean kayaking on the Sangke River
By definition the riverbanks were muddy so we looked for a place to land where we wouldn’t get caked in clart. We climbed over wooden fishing canoes onto a landing that lead us into a mosque and the road by the river where Veasna was waiting to take us to lunch.
The most bizarre experience is saved until last, a ride on the Bamboo Train.
Actually it’s a ‘Norrie’ or crude assembly of a bamboo platform on the axles and wheels of salvaged railway stock with an engine attached to a flywheel at the back. Once a necessary means of transporting goods across the countryside when there were few roads now an unexpected half hour ride offering yet another take on Khmer culture.
The Bamboo Train
Timing was everything so once we’d located the point where our guests would get on and sped round to where they’d get off ready to be whisked back to Siem Reap our job was done and the timing perfect. Disembark their ‘Norrie’ about 4.30, hotel 7 and dinner 8.
Indochine Exploration can run this adventure as the very full day trip described or at a slightly more relaxed pace staying one night in an elegant boutique hotel, embarking on the bamboo train Day 2 with an early lunch and back in Siem Reap around 3pm.
by Nick | Jul 23, 2013 | Blog
The rainy season is well in progress so the paddy fields were green and bursting with life as we left the highway and headed along the earth road to Maichrey.
Maichrey Channel in the rainy season
Not much more than a dry season ditch until a couple of years ago when a deeper channel was dredged for the fishermen and the few tourist boats that launch from Maichrey.
Vic & Ruth with Alistair in the Maichrey Channel
At this time of year when the Lake is near its lowest, you can drive most of the way along a sandy track to the pagoda that in a few months will become an isolated island, surrounded by floating houses that have moved inland from the open water.
Vic & Ruth Sally’s seventy-year old parents and Reuben and Karyn, Dean’s friends from New Zealand were the perfect guests, pumping up the kayaks and helping with the launch. And they knew how to paddle.
Peace at last away from the cacophony of pre-election Siem Reap, where the political parties are fighting a proxy election judged by the decibels their loud speakers can blast. We weren’t in the Core Bird Reserve but still a couple of parakeets screeched past, a kingfisher sped from branch to branch and a bittern kept us company. Best of all and rare for July, seven Lesser Adjutants slowly circled the floating house where we had lunch.
The Tonle Sap Lake and in fact most of Indochina’s waterways are clogged by the invasive water hyacinth including the channel where we were kayaking. Alistair and I had waited until a long tail propeller had minced a path through the weed when we recce’d the trip last week. Today we’d arranged for a boat to wait where the plants were thickest so that he could carve a path through which the kayaks would follow.
A floating house being towed to the Maichrey Pagoda as the Lake rises with child on the back (below)
A khmer kid posing for the camera
A few hundred meters past this obstacle the channel or what must be the Puok River, which flows from Phnom Kulen opens out into an estuary of the Tonle Sap Lake. The floating houses that migrate to the pagoda as the water rises were moored along the shore along with the armada of attendant structures including fish and crocodile cages, floating pig pens, chicken coops, log houses, spirit houses and even floating gardens.
We passed by a floating school supported by the Mission of Mercy with signs not to feed the children or similar and the distinctive Vietnamese house boats with their curved roofs usually adorned by a TV mast, which serve as mobile grocery stores to the village, until we reached our destination a more substantial floating house that was now a restaurant.
There was the option to continue onto the open lake after lunch but with a couple of beers and a Blue Pumpkin lunch consumed we took the easy option and let Mr Bo steer the return route with our kayaks loaded onto his motor boat.
by Nick | Jul 16, 2013 | Blog
It’s a pretty drive to Banteay Srei, initially through the Angkor Park past the jaw dropping Prey Rup Temple, then typical Khmer wooden houses, rice paddy and the blue line of the Kulen Hills to the North.
June and July are good months to visit Angkor as there are not many tourists in Siem Reap and the heat is attenuated by frequent showers that make for wonderful cloudscapes as a back drop to the temples.
Indochine Exploration is not about Angkor Wat but the Apsara pass allowed us to accompany Vic and Ruth, our guests around Banteay Srei, which no matter how many times you’ve seen it before always leaves an impression. The rain has revitalized the countryside, the rice paddy’s are a brilliant green and the trees seem fluffed out. The Banteay Srei moat was full and studded with lilac lotus flowers. The surrounding tall dipteropcarp trees dripped foliage, framing this the prettiest of all temples.
Detail on Banteay Srei lintel
Kbal Spean, our destination lies at the Western end of the Kulen massif and the point where the Western branch of the Siem Reap River reaches the plain. Kbal Spean literally translated as head bridge or bridge head in English. We were following the temple trail up the hillside to where a thousand Lingas are carved into the riverbed watched over by Hindu deities engraved into rock faces. Apsara does a good job maintaining the trail and keeping the magic of the tumbling stream descending through the forest washing over these ancient symbols.
Linga’s and Yoni carved into the Kbal Spean River bed
Orb spider
The fun for me started when we left the tourist trail and headed off into the jungle. There’s a bit of bush-bashing at this time of year as the vegetation crowds onto the path but that added to the adventure accompanied by the liquid calls of unseen birds and the cacophonous scream of cicadas. To have a chance of seeing mammals in the forest you need to go on a night-walk but the explosion of butterflies at every watercourse and weird diversity of insects was diversion enough. Virulent black and yellow orb spiders had spun insect traps across the trail, slowly gorging on the prey at the center of their webs.
Indochine’s expertise in Kulen is due to the biodiversity survey Alistair, my business partner, had managed. The survey was focused on bats, identifying a possible new species for science, 2 new species for Cambodia and 3 new national park records. In the process camera traps also captured Silvered Langurs, a type of monkey that was thought to be expedited from the Park. This spectacular discovery has lead to additional funding, which Indochine Exploration is excited to be involved with and gives our guests the chance to contribute directly to the conservation project by helping to place and pick up the traps. In the process they will have the excitement of checking the camera to see what it has caught.
After a couple of kilometers we emerged from the forest beside the river where it flows over wide open ledges of rock with plunge pools scoured by a thousand years of revolving pebbles. The Team consisting of the Ministry of Environment ranger, the policeman, the Apsara guard, a man from the local village and a dog with no name so we called him chkai, which means dog, were waiting for us.
This was Amansara so there were bottles of iced homemade lemonade, flasks of proper coffee (unfortunately a nicely chilled Chablis seemed to be missing), beautifully presented lunch boxes of cuscus and hummus, salads and prosciutto sandwiches. Fruit kebabs and crispy crumbly ANZAC biscuits to go with the coffee but top of the list was submersion in the cool, clear plunge pools.
Picnic
Nick and Sally in plunge pool
Alistair had cut a trail through the forest to the back door of The Angkor Center for Conservation & Biodiversity (ACCB) and Dave the Project Manager was waiting to take us on a tour of this wild animal sanctuary and rehabilitation center. ACCB’s residents are rescued from the illegal bush meat, traditional / Chinese medicine trade. ACCB is also a last refuge for the cute cubs and pups captured as pets without understanding that they grow up as potentially dangerous animals.
The reclusive stars of The Center are the pangolins, nocturnal scaly and fussy anteaters who only eat ants, not easy to find a constant supply. ACCB may only represent the tip of the iceberg as most animals will be long since consumed before they get there but it was encouraging to hear of the police who confiscated 4m long Reticulated Python that Alistair who used to work at ACCB was called to rescue from a police cell last weekend.
Picnic spot on the Siem Reap River
