To Ratanakiri

So let me take a step back and write a bit about our trip to Ratanakiri.

So we used up our very last annual leave days to go and visit the very north-eastern province of Ratanakiri. “Ratana” means gem and “kiri” means mountain. And true to its name there are a few gem mines in the area with some semi-precious stones available. It borders both Laos and Vietnam and is slightly higher in elevation, so it was a bit cooler at night (which…. yes, is one of the reasons we sought this area out!) This was probably our favorite vacation in country so far…. we think mostly because of the nice scenery, lack of tourists and relaxing atmosphere.

It definitely was a trip getting up there however. We broke up the travel by staying in Kampong Cham for a night (which is a five and a half hour bus ride from our town) and then hopped on the only bus that comes from Phnom Penh up to the provincial town of Ban Lung in Ratanakiri. That was about an eight hour bus ride, with only half of that trip being on paved roads. (Not to mention, I think we rode with one of the most reckless bus drivers in Cambodia)…. it was a bit of a tense ride for me, but thankfully we made it there safe and sound.

Not too far north after the pavement ended, the landscape changed a bit as well. There were less and less fields of rice and more and more rubber and cashew plantations. You also noticed that there was quite a bit more poverty up in this area. We noticed that hardly any of the houses had any concrete and most were made strictly of wood. Another thing I noticed was that not a lot of the houses had their own well, thus meaning many of these people have to travel by foot/moto to retrieve their water from other places for their daily use.

With all of that as a prelude, this part of the country had a very different feel. There was something nice about it, maybe even a bit charming. In some places in this province there are some ethnic tribal villages. They speak a completely different language and work the land in the same ways they’ve been worked for hundreds of years. So it was interesting to so see that.

I wouldn’t quite say there were mountains (I’m a bit biased having lived in Montana prior to this) but there were beautiful rolling hills covered with green trees. (During this time of the year in our province, everything is pretty brown and dried up for the hot season) so it was nice to see a bit of green. There are tons of cashew plantations as well as rubber, and the many dirt roads were as deep of a dark rusty, burnt umber red as you could imagine.

I remember last year seeing some volunteers who had just returned from Ratanakiri – and they looked as dirty as could be. Their clothes, bags, shoes and everything were caked with this deep colored dark red dirt. I thought to myself, “Really?…How did you get so dirty, couldn’t you wash up a bit??” But after going up there I completely understood. Not much is paved and during the dry season that dust is just everywhere. The latter half of the bus trip up, our AC quit and so we opened the windows,…and from that point on we were pretty much covered in dust for the next four days. It didn’t matter though, it was worth it.

We ended up staying at the “Tree Top” bungalow eco-lodge; which I highly recommend if anyone is going up to that area….but it was a nice place with stylishly done bungalows that over look a very green valley full of cashew trees. Each bungalow had its own bathroom (I really liked how they incorporated all of the river rock into the floors and walls), and a nice deck with a hammock, which was a great place to spend the evening gazing out over the trees and resting from a full day of travelling about.

The first day we went to Choung Ek waterfall.

It was a nice waterfall …in a pretty peaceful place. You could walk behind it, under this huge boulder and just watch the water continuously splash down. Then we went on to scope out the rolling countryside. It was really picturesque and nice to just see something other than the flat (currently brown) rice fields up where we’re at. Then the afternoon was spent at Yeak Loum Lake, which is an ancient volcanic crater lake. The water was a clear, turquoise blue – and the perfect temperature for swimming. We spent the entire afternoon there just jumping off the dock and enjoying the best possible way to spend a day in the heat. (We SO wish there was a swimming-hole clean enough to swim in near our house…it’d make the hot days so much more tolerable!!). After we had our fill of swimming we went to visit one of the native villages.

It was interesting to see, the houses were slightly different, there’s a different language, there were unique handmade crafts such as woven fabrics and baskets that have shoulder straps like a backpack, for hauling things (which was unique to this area). After and travelling around a bit more we called it a day.

The next day we decided to go up 30k to a small river town. On the way the scenery was nice….there was a beautiful pass over a valley…and again, nice to be surrounded by trees most of the way. Once we got to the town we crossed the river on a ferry and checked out what was on the northern bank. There was an entire street full of ethnic Chinese people and you could tell by the style of houses they had built. There were a few boat builders along this strip of water, but overall just a sleepy river town going about its daily business. We got back to Ban Lung later that afternoon, but just enough time to go for another dip in the lake. We decided to catch the sunset atop a rather large hill in town. At the top there is a large reclining Buddha facing the north along with a breathtaking view of part of the town and then the countryside below. It was a nice way to end the day.



On the last day we had made arrangements with a guide to visit two more waterfalls, as well as go on an elephant ride. Well the elephant ride was about as exciting as you’d imagine an elephant ride to be……but how can you live in Cambodia for two years and NOT go on an elephant ride??? Well, it was pretty slow going to say the least….and the 90 minute ride which we had paid for probably covered the length total of one city block. To their defense, I guess we did sort of go into the brush/jungle area and we stopped twice while the large creature ate for about 10 minutes a pop. However, one of the times it ate an entire branch full of bunches of bananas, which I do admit was kind of cool to see. Anyway, we got our elephant ride in (and I think it was the next morning that we saw an episode on Nat Geo Adventure about some circus elephant that had attacked its trainer of 10 years. Go figure. I guess we’re just glad that our elephant didn’t decide to turn on us during our ride.) Anyway, we got our ride in, checked out the waterfall and then went with our 20-something guide named Sareth to the next waterfall we were to see (and be able to swim in).

Well when we arrived, Sareth asked us if we wanted to swim. It wasn’t the cleanest looking of waters, but the waterfall looked nice nonetheless. Since he said we ought to go, we decided to go for it. We both love swimming and like I said before we don’t get to do it that often. The waterfall was nice…and we were able to sit under it for a bit, and like the guide said, it was a bit like a natural massage on the shoulders. After we got our fill, we went over to the rope bridge and got a few other nice views of the area. When we went back to Sareth he asked us if we liked the waterfall, and we said ‘Yes’ of course. Then he went on to say that “Oh I want to swim so badly today. I really do want to swim today.” We told him that he should, as we were in no hurry, and if he wanted to take a dip – to go ahead and do it and that we’d wait for him. Then he went on to say, “Oh, I really want to swim so very much, but I think the water is not so clean today.”



… I think to myself, “Really? Did this guy just tell us he doesn’t want to swim in it because it is dirty, yet he led us to believe it was perfectly fine for US to swim in it?” Sigh. Only in Cambodia. Oh well…. we haven’t seen any side effects to date that we know of from swimming in those waters and hopefully that will remain to be the case.

After that waterfall we took Sareth out to lunch and decided that we couldn’t get enough of the CLEAN Yeak Loum crater lake and spent the rest of the afternoon there.

It was a MUCH busier day that time since it was the King’s birthday, and a lot of Khmer students didn’t have class. The lake seemed to be thee hot spot place to be on an afternoon such as that one, and in all honesty it was easy to see why.

We enjoyed our last dinner on the deck at the tree-top restaurant and were able to view a dramatic sunset. Afterwards, we packed our bags and got ready to leave on the 6:30am bus back to Kg Cham the following morning to make our trip back…to a part of the country we had hoped to be cooler a week later, but as we shortly found out, it truly wasn’t, just quite yet.