Anyhoo, when we get there we have the happy surprise of having not motorcycles to take us the hour or so to where we start hiking but a trek. Our group as large, us and four Germans as well as our guide and two rangers. Three of the Germans--Nadine, Ben, and Johan--are traveling in a group and the fourth, Matthias, sat in the bed of the truck with us on our way to the village where we crossed the La Li river. I felt pretty covered up with long pants, long sleeves, a cap, a surgical mask, and sunglasses but by the time we arrived my face and hands were caked with red dust. My eyebrows only changed back to their natural color after intensive scrubbing a few days later.
While we were waiting for the ferry my mom and I walked up to the market and bought some chili peppers in case the food was bland or inedible and a fruit that was about the size and shape of grapes and had a stiff brown skin that we peeled to eat the eyeball-like (unappetizing but realistic) fruit. The pit to fruit ratio was such that after a few I deemed it not worth the effort but my parents snacked for some time.
The boat was a large wooden platform with a shade and motor on one side and motorbikes and other vehicles on the other. The river wasn't wide but the boat moved so painfully slowly it would have taken at least half as much time to swim it. It was only nine in the morning but already hot enough to long for that icy lemonade we had in Lima and dread the hike to come.
So far there have been no regrets about the decision to ditch backpacks in favor of rolling bags but that meant our bags were daybags now and we had to carry waterbottles in our hands when they were distributed a couple of hours later.Almost immediately after we got off the boat Nadine was on a bike and gone, shrugging at us to indicate that she had no idea where she was going either. Before the rest of us left on the fleet of motorbikes waiting for us my dad scrounged up a helmet for me and made our guide tell my driver to drive safely and slowly. I think he did--I didn't fall off--but the dirt road we were driving on was so filled with potholes and bumps that is was a fairly brain-rattling ride. The one hill and two bridges we went over were nervewracking. The first was steep and bouncy and the second rickety and narrow but both were survived by all of us.
Our ride deposited us in a shelter with a roof, two walls, and a raised platform on either side where we dropped our bags. The motorbikes went in with hammocks and water and we waited a long time for something I'm not quite clear on. We made the decision to go with a Cambodian agency but at this point we regretting it a but because they didn't seem clear on how much water they had or that we needed or what to do with it. Everything ended up alright, though, and we were glad for our desicion in the end.
When everything was finally organized we trudged up a dirt road for a few hundred meters before turning onto a dust path. We were walking by fields that had been burnt to stubble and completely dried out in the sun so there was at best little relief from baking. Our guide told us a story about a cannibal tribe that lived in the hills near where we hiked but though there are (or were, I'm not sure) his story was embellished.
The Ban Lung area is fairly filled with Germans. We met two more returning from a similar hike when we were starting out. Apparently they had opted out of rafting the last day in favor of getting back to town earlier but looked about as hot as we felt and we started to worry that we wouldn't be able to raft at all. It wasn't a pleasant thought. Hiking that way once was bad enough.
After about an hour and a half we stopped in a place with a couple intact trees and ate veggie takeout. I was too hot to eat anything but everybody else added liberal amounts of soy sauce and enjoyed. Johan was a vegetarian too so while Ben and Nadine travelled with him they conformed and Matthias ate the same for lunch because no meat was on offer. When everyone was done our guide and the dubious rangers (dubious because they weren't hired by the national park and had to be dissuaded out of taking crossbows) look for spiders to show us. Their method was to poke sticks down their nests in hopes of making them angry enough to come out but none surfaced.
Nadine started telling us about their trip. She told us a little about some of the cities on our list; apparently Vientiane is a lot like a large version of Hoi An and Chang Mai is touristy. They only have four weeks as a break from school and couldn't tell us about everything on our list but what they could was useful.
No spiders were found and we hiked on. We had yet to walk through jungle and the decimated and sizzling land was depressing. Not to mention hot. After another hour or so of walking through that (Matthias somehow found the energy to talk constantly the whole way... Luckily in German) we arrived at a house where the motorbikes had left the extra supplies. It was amazing to sit down in the shade for a little while even if there was motor oil on the bench, and we drank a ton of water and finally were able to try the melon-sized, green, spiky jackfruits. I have a picture later because we bought one in Stung Treng.
With our packs considerably more weighed down we set off again and were finally able to see a bit of jungle. The creepers, bamboo, and innocent but thorny vines covering the path were a cue for Matthias to take the machete begged off one of the guides and hack ineffectually away at anything within arm's length. That put an end to the talking for some time but because our marching order had changed so I walked behind him it terrorized my parents and we fell some ways behind the group.
There was only one river to cross and it didn't get much above knee-high. The water felt amazing and though Nadine crossed with her socks pulled up to her knees no leeches made an appearance. My dad wished for his good camera when we saw a magenta dragonfly in a rock near us but we have until Phnom Penh to get a replacement charger.
From the river it was only a fifteen minute hike to where we stopped by a waterfall. The pool made by it was deep and it was a novel sensation to be cold again. My mom and I brought our shirts in in an effort to wash them from dusty red back to their original colors but did nothing but ensure that they were damp in the morning. At least it was clean dirt!
Dinner was more rice and vegetables and after the headlamps were dug out and all questionable items gifted to my parents it was warm and satisfying. The rangers cut down bamboo to make a structure to hang the army surplus hammocks from while we ate and after most of us went on a night
Once we tripped up a hill and down another we came to a stream with fish and frogs in it. A ranger caught one and wanted to eat it but we vegetarians banded together in protest and he waited until we weren't there to find it again. On our way back we were lucky enough to see the eyes and vague silhouette of something called a badger but that lived in trees. Possibly it was a mistranslation.
The hammocks had a built-in mosquito net but bugs were in scarce supply. It was a bit tricky adjusting to the hammock but proved comfortable once I was used to it.
All the bugs started buzzing at about the same time so we woke up bright and early. Breakfast was more rice and boiled vegetables, but it was subsistence food and we were alright.
We we packed and ready to go before the Germans sat talking to our guide-who-shall-not-be-named for some time. Unlike Vietnam where peopke laugh at you, in Cambodia they laugh at everything. He laughed after telling us that a few years ago his family had been evicted from their seven hectare farm by a company and given only a fraction of its worth in return, despite a law saying that if somebody lives in a place for five years they own it. After saying that since the Vietnamese are taking the country's resources and influencing the government things will come to a head in the next five years and turn into war. He plans on leaving the country if that happens, maybe to join one of the tourists whose contact information he asks for. In a few years he hopes to have enough money to buy a couple of acres for a farm and maybe get married, but his parents don't want to farm again because the worry that they will just be evicted.
It was a shorter day of walking but a lot hillier and in jungle that was very dense and gloried in producing plenty of tripwires and nice sharp poky things at eye level. In a clearing there was a vine that people swung on for a few minutes and, in another, our guide found a vine that holds water. When tilted a stream of cool, fresh (if tree-tasting) ran out of it. It wasn't hollow but held a surprising amount of liquid.
We were done walking by lunch and the climax was a thirty minute scramble down almost sheer bamboo forest, covered with the sandy soil that comes from slash and burn and filled with bamboo that looked deceptively sturdy. Rather than slide and slither short distances before running into bamboo it would have been more effective to slide the whole way but turns and spiky things impeded our progress.
More rice and boiled vegetables for lunch and we were finally out of soy sauce. Fortunately, thanks to the heat, I was much more thirsty than hungry and didn't have to choke all of it down.
The river had a strongish current but was cool and deep and I waded while others swam. We were done walking for the day but still had to make the rafts to take us to the homestay. Our guide and rangers chopped twenty-some thirty-five-foot poles that we teamed up to carry them the two hundred fifty meters down to the water. It turned out we weren't even dropping them in the right place so after an hour and a half of dreaming about cold beverages and Olympic weather we had to delay our second river dip again to move them.
Our guide swam with us while the rangers expertly put three long, thin rafts together. He (and, it seems, Cambodians in general) laughed at everything and had a blast splashing everybody and playing a version of tag with Johan. Johan cheated; he didn't allow himself to be caught.
All the backpacks were placed in plastic bags and those in a tarpaulin it was loaded onto the longest raft and Nadine and I, as the lightest, joined it. With the addition of our guide and a ranger our raft was by far lowest in the water.
As it is the dry season the river is almost at it's lowest and we scraped along the bottom a few times before reaching an unpassable point. Naturally I fell getting out but everyone else disembarked smoothly and it wasn't more than ten minutes to the rock plateau where the rafts were anchored and dinner was cooked. The homestay was only a few minutes further away and a puppy came over to join us. Around it I was reminded (as if I needed it) how glad I was that we had Lillie and particularly a five-year-old Lillie who no longer feels the need to shred my hands whenever I pet her.
For dinner we were treated to rice and boiled vegetables.
It was dark by the time we got to the homestay and it was awkward not having any language in common with anybody and invading their space. Probably because they weren't accustomed to groups as large as ours there were problems finding space for all the hammocks but eventually it was agreed that my mom and I would sleep outside. A big jug of rice wine was brought out but to late for any of the tourists to want to do anything but go to bed. It was an excuse for the family to party, and they stayed up all night long talking and laughing loudly around the fire.
Between that and the rooster that began crowing every five minutes starting at three in the morning none of us slept very well and there was no problem getting up in time to hike up a hill to see the sunrise.
It was a steep climb up to a huge chopped-down tree where we sat in a row for thirty minutes or so. Eventually Matthias' constant chattering got on out nerves and since we weren't facing the right way to see the sun anyways my parents and I hiked first back to the homestay to collect our packs and then to the exposed rocky riverbed where breakfast was being cooked and the rafts were still anchored from the night before. Breakfast was a treat of ramen noodles with boiled vegetables.
At a quarter to nine we loaded up the rafts again and set off. There were more shallow and narrow parts and Nadine and I had to get out a couple of times to make the raft light enough to clear a spot but the three hours passed smoothly. Our raft fell behind at one point when the guide and the ranger stopped in a deep spot to do backflips off the raft but we caught up with all four of us paddling or poling.
Despite being told that there was no hiking on the third and last day it was more than an hour from where we left the rafts back to where we ate lunch, a few hundred meters beyond where we set out from (after getting off the bikes). It was the terrain of the first day again only the dust/sand was much deeper and our line spread out to avoid breathing in the gunk kicked up.
While we were walking our guide was telling us about Buddhism for a little while. He said that meditation is very uncommon, as while you are meditating there are nine paths your soul can go down and only one is the right one. If you choose the wrong path you won't be able to find your way back.
Since we back in civilization we had a new cook for lunch and he made us rice with tofu and boiled vegetables. Soy sauce was available from a small store and the vegetables were among the easiest to dislodge and remove. I'm a vegetarian, of course I don't hate all vegetables, but when leafy green things are boiled they get the same slimy consistency and the same bitter taste whether they are spinach, kale, collards, or bok choi and they get passed along when they land on my plate.
Most people were out working in the fields and it was hard to scrounge up six people with motorbikes who could take us back to town and, as it was, we couldn't find the seventh. Nadine and Ben shared. The helmet my dad found for me was way too big and the visor caked with dust and wouldn't stay up but it was a moot point because I neither crashed nor fell.
It was some time before the ferry arrived and we all bought semi-cold beverages. Our guide had to go right back out with another group and he left almost before we knew it. Luckily the truck was waiting on the other side, and this time Matthias, Nadine, my mom, and I sat inside. Unfortunately the back seat was not a bench seat so while there was room for me between my mom and Nadine there was a five-inch-wide gap between the seats and I had nowhere to put my feet (which fell asleep something awful a by the time we stopped once more in front of Parrot Tours).
Back to the Eco Lodge again, but this time we went to the a cafe serving western food. Their founding philosophy was based on not being able to stomach another baguette or cup of Cambodian coffee. And they had salad! And lasagna! And bagels!!!!!!!!!
Because of a combination of the waiters not really speaking English and nobody except me eating bagels with an equal bagel to cream cheese to vinegar ratio the owner (I'm not sure what country he was from... Maybe England or Sweden but I might be making that us) had to come out and help translate. He was appropriately apalled at a 5-month hiatus from bagels and spoke his agreement that a bagel must be properly prepared before one can eat it.
Since then we had bunch of long busrides and stopped in three or four towns and so of course tons of bloggable stuff happened but right now I have a pressing need to convince my parents that we really need to go get some late-night ice cream right now. It's been on the agenda (though restaurants have thwarted us) for several days now and as they feel a tad guilty about how little sleep I'm getting it shouldn't be too much of a chore.
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