Kampuchea Adventure | Aug. 29-31st

So we just got back today from our weekend getaway "Kampuchea Adventure". This was our chance to get away without our Peace Corps parents holding our hands every step of the way. We were to practice travelling on our own, using the Khmer language skills we have acquired and get away for the weekend without any meetings, classes or anything - and just have a little fun.

We were done with our sessions at 3pm on Friday so a few of us from our village decided to get out early and leave for Phnom Penh for the night and get a head start on our Adventure.

There were several of us who had the same idea to get to the big city that night.... we admit, it was nice to get out of town and see other foreigners and most of all grab some American (well almost american) food. As stated 2 posts ago we had some amazing french fries, onion rings and a burger (which wasn't quite the tasty beef I'm used to from the prairie) BUT it still tasted pretty darn good. Like really pretty darn good. Don't get me wrong, our host mom makes DELICIOUS food. But, stir fry and rice everyday, even with variations can get a little old.

After dinner a few of us hit up the internet cafe, made some calls and then we all hung out for a while at the restaurant/lounge at our guesthouse.

The next morning Will wasn't feeling the greatest (jock pooah = stomach ache). -We still don't know if it was from something he ate the night before- or just a quick little stomach flu... BUT he decided he was well enough to continue on the adventure. Another kid, Matt, from our training village decided to tag along with us because his travel partner was too ill to go with him.
So we grabbed some breakfast and then checked outta the guesthouse to grab a tuk tuk (a tuk tuk is a moto that pulls a covered little trailer with seats that carries passengers) to the Central Market to hop a minibus/taxi to be on our way to Kirirom National Park.

It was a bit of an adventure in itself just taking the tuk tuk to the central market. Apparently this market is a main hub for where many tourists hop different buses/taxis' to some of the main tourist spots. AS SOON as our tuk tuk driver slowed down and stopped, we were SURROUNDED by taxi drivers allllll asking us if we needed a ride somewhere. "Where are you going? You need taxi?" "I can give you ride". It was overwhelming--- they all were shouting, competing with each other trying to get us foreigners to spend our money with them.

Ha. I probably could've been a little nicer, but I raised my voice and told everyone to "Just settle down and quit shouting!! Otherwise we will not ride with any of you." We finally just told them "No" we don't need a ride...and began to walk away and pretended to head to the market, and finally they left us alone.

After we snuck away for a while we were able to stealthily find the guy who was going in the direction that we were headed.

It's amazing how their transportation system works here in this country. Well how traffic works and goes is marvel in itself, as I don't understand how there aren't more traffic accidents than there are. Their rhymes and rules of driving really aren’t much of rhymes and rules at all.

But above that, somehow the transportation system works. Different markets are hubs for going to different places. And all the minibuses (small vans that are taxi's) are somehow organized by which national road they travel on. After we found a guy who'd take us to Kirirom, we waited inside his empty vehicle until it began to fill up. The taxi's won't leave until they've got a full load; so just because you've found a ride, it doesn't mean that you'll be leaving right away.

Finally after about an hour- and after our minibus was full to the max (including a few live chickens in the back) we were on the road. We got off at a town called Treng Tryeong (sp?) and we were responsible for finding a different set of wheels up to the national park on our own as the rest of the minibus was to continue down the national road.

We grabbed some lunch and after much asking around, everyone was telling us that the only way up to Kirirom was by a moto (which we are forbidden to ride due to peace corps policy) or a taxi. The thing about the thing was that the taxi's are super expensive (well by the budget we're expected to live on) if you hire one only for yourselves and not a shared ride.

Our waitress helped us out by calling her friend who was a taxi driver. We chatted with him using the limited Khmer we knew, and he said for a round trip ticket up to Kirirom and back down the next day was going to cost us $50.

We were like, "What!?!? FIFTY DOLLARS!??" We each were given a budget of $16 for transportation for the entire weekend, and this guy wanted $50 for the last leg of our trip. We paid $3 to get from Phnom Penh to Treying Tryeong, and now he wanted THAT much money to get up the hill. It’s a good thing Matt was travelling with us, as that made the trip a little less expensive had it been just Will and I.

Anyways… Peace Corps did allow us an “emergency fund” of $10 each. They gave it to us in advance but if we spent it we had to have good justification of why we spent it. With that in mind we talked down the taxi to $23 and he took us on our way.

Not long after we were driving up the hill to Kirirom we began to realize why this guy wanted $25 to get up the hill. The road was paved, but it had several pot-holes and lots of bumps. NOT the easiest terrain for a minivan. Had we had the Tacoma- no problem, but the minivan wasn’t the best ride.
After about a half an hour and $28 later (admission to the park was $5) we finally made our way to “Kirirom Guesthouse”. I asked our taxi driver for his cell phone number in case we needed to arrange a ride down the hill in the morning with him. The owners of the resort pulled a fast one and kindly asked us if we needed a ride back down to Treying Treong. We said, “Yes”! With excitement thinking that maybe we could catch a ride for free back down with them since they were going down anyways. After the taxi driver left...they asked us what time we wanted to leave, and we said 7:30am after breakfast. They said they’d take us for $20. We were like, “$20??? Thlaiy Malay! (expensive!!) They said gas is expensive. We concurred, but still. We paid $3 to get from Phnom Penh which was a 2hr trip and now they wanted $20 for a trip back down the hill when they were going to go anyways.

We were cornered. There was nothing we could do but accept the ride – because at least it was $3 less than the other taxi driver. Sigh. Well all we can hope is that Peace Corps will reimburse us for picking such an expensive spot to get to (which we will find out tomorrow). Not only was transportation expensive, there were signs on the doors of the guestrooms which said those were $20/night too. They had two beds in them so to save on money, Matt stayed in our room too. It all seemed soo expensive since we could get a room w/ a T.V., Air-conditioning, a fan, and bathroom with warm water in Phnom Penh for $10/night. BUT what were we to do. I guess it was all a part of the ‘Kampuchea Adventure’.

After we got over how much we had just paid to get here (well actually I don’t think we ever got over it) BUT after we were able to settle in; it truly was a pretty nice place. Did I mention on the ride up that we felt the drop in air temperature? We also saw right when we were high enough for pine trees to be growing.

We found a trail to walk on and it led us through this nice meadow with tons of pine trees and we literally felt like we were back in Minnesota in the forest. It smelled sOOoooOoo good AND we were walking without breaking a sweat. Like….. we weren’t sweating. What!?

We read in some materials that this mountain area has been completely cleared of landmines. The Khmer Rouge were finally removed from this mountainous area in 1996, which is when the resort started up again.

Anyway, knowing that we were safe to walk on all the trails in the whole park, we saw a sign (written in Khmer) with an arrow. We thought, what the heck, we might as well walk that-a-way. So we followed the sign, then came to another one with an arrow, followed that and continued on. Then we saw some people and tried to ask them about where to find the waterfall (which was interesting b/c none of us knew the words for waterfall--- SOoo we just asked them where the “water pretty pretty” was in khmer.) They did seem to understand and told us to go straight ahead and on the right. Sure enough there was another sign with more arrows. Then we got to this small area where there was a little food stand w/ a few ladies selling a few items. We asked them too about water pretty, pretty. She pointed to these steps that went down a ways. We started walking down them and sure enough heard the sound of water. Then we heard the sound of laughter. Our hopes finally started to rise after this long walk (well the long day that it was turning into). And then we got down farther and the choirs from the angels above began to sing the most harmoniously, heavenly song. Well not really, but that’s what it felt like.

That was the moment when we saw the waterfall. It wasn’t enormous. It wasn’t gushing or the most impressive waterfall I’ve seen by far. BUT it was a waterfall. It was cool. People were swimming in it and it was the most beautiful natural spot I’ve seen while in Cambodia thus far. Ahhhh….. finally the sound and feel of water. I’ve always loved water and loved being by lakes, rivers and streams—and finally we were here.
Khmer people don’t typically wear swimsuits, so when they swim, they just go in with their clothes.
It didn’t take long for us to follow suit and walk up to the falls and let the water douse us until we were soaking wet. And boy did it feel fantastic. It sure beats our bucket shower that we take. It was this cool water just gushing down all over us, cooling our bodies and it just felt magnificent. It kept coming and it was amazing.

We found ourselves enjoying the rest of the afternoon just sitting by the water, getting in every once in a while and relaxing on the nice afternoon.

All good times must come to an end unfortunately. So we grabbed our things and in our wet clothes we started the hour hike/walk back to the resort.

We made our way up there and it was about time for dinner. They had these little huts with tables that we could sit at. It gave us a pretty nice view of the area and surrounding mountains. It also gave us a decent view of the sunset, which we enjoyed while eating some fried rice, fried pork & pineapple, and ginger chicken with white rice. A pretty good meal (AND it wasn’t too overpriced). We ate it to our content. Headed back to the room (it gets dark around 6:30pm in these parts) and played some cards and I think we crashed around 8pm. Actually, I do recall asking Will at one point if he was warm enough, and I think that was the first time I’ve said that without being sarcastic here. At nightfall the temp even dropped more and it felt Sooooo nice.

We all slept really good that night… not to mention it was really quiet up top that mountain… we didn’t wake to any dog fights, OR the roosters crowing at 5am.

We gathered our belongings and went to the restaurant to order some breakfast. We decided to go for the omelet. Which turned out to be pretty tasty, (it only had onions inside) but it actually tasted pretty good. After that they got their truck out – a small Toyota truck (dad I’d say it’s about the same size/circa as yours) J and then we hopped in the back.

The ride down was nice as we were able to catch a few nice views since we were in the open air. It was still cool out and the sun was shining over all the trees quite picturesquely. The owner’s wife and two daughters were riding down with us as they wanted to catch a taxi back to Phnom Penh as well. When we got back to Treying Treyong we paid them their $20, and then they helped us get a taxi to Phnom Penh which only was going to cost us $2.

We were kind of confused because we knew they wanted to go to PP but they didn’t hop in our taxi. I didn’t know if it was because they had arranged something else, or if it was because they were embarrassed of what they had just charged us for the ride back down or what. But thanks we said goodbye and we were on our way. Again, we had to wait for the taxi to fill up with enough people to go. After about 20 minutes it wasn’t completely full but we had enough for the driver to decide to start going. All of us in back were like “sweet. This will be a pretty comfortable ride back to PP with only 3 of us in this row” as they seem to fit in 4ppl when they can. Then maybe a mile down the road, our driver slows down to pick up some more passengers in need of a ride. Low and behold-- who do you think it was? It was the owner’s wife and the two daughters trying to hail a taxi to get to Phnom Penh. Once they realized that this was the same taxi they sent us off in, I think they were quite embarrassed. It was sort of funny because they were offered to sit in the middle back part of the van but they asked if they could all squeeze in the front. There was just this sort of awkwardness about all of it. Here we were in the back of the van squeezed in nicely, waiting patiently to get back to Phnom Penh, and up front was the owner’s wife and daughters riding the same taxi to Phnom Penh, but now with our $20 in their pocket.

Go figure. I guess that’s how it is sometimes. Take the money and run. They knew we needed a ride. They knew how much we paid to get up there. They knew we weren’t walking down, so they took advantage of us. Live and learn I guess.

Nonetheless ~ the actual afternoon that we spent at Kirirom was really great. The waterfall was amazing. The cooler temperature was truly a treat AND we got a really good night’s sleep in the cool air and quiet surroundings. The wind rustling through the pines was a familiar sound that until then, I didn’t realize how much I missed.

So that was our Kampuchea Adventure. It was good and we learned a lot, used Khmer, had a good time and also were taken advantage of. I guess what is a foreigner to expect?