Elephants and jungle trekking

Elephants! This was the big ticket item for the next part of our journey, and probably one of the biggest ticket items for the whole trip. Luckily, they did not disappoint. We had a two day elephant and trekking adventure booked, thanks in no small part to James' sister Kate who had recommended a resort in Mondulkiri province that she had stayed in 17 years previously. It was still there and made all the necessary arrangements for us. 

We jumped in a beaten up van to drive out to an elephant conservation project, along some of the worst roads we'd seen on the trip so far. In particular, there was one hill where there was a crevasse in the middle of the road, looking like the hill was splitting in two, it had to be 4 metres deep. There was just enough room to drive alongside it, although the view from the left hand side of the van was pretty scary. At the top of a hill we could drive no further and went the rest of the way on foot. It was steep and slick, not helped by overnight rain, and the hike down was slow. Faster was the motorbike ridden by one of the mahoots, although neither of us can imagine how he made it down without having a serious accident (let alone carrying a bike full of supplies). 

At the bottom, we came across some huts and toilets, and the two mahoots who took us to see the elephants. The project has 300 hectares of jungle for the elephants to roam in, and they have 3 elephants who have been rescued from working lives elsewhere. They are in negotiation to save some more, although it is a tough ask when they are used as farm workers and tourist attractions in local villages. The two females are very social, and we were given bananas to offer as snacks, and were promptly approached. Feeding the elephants was an amazing experience, and they were very enthusiastic about the bananas, only by showing them two empty hands could you slow their approach! We were able to feed them and pat them, at least for as long as the bananas lasted, at which point they wandered off to continue feeding in the jungle. We followed them around for a while, standing in awe at the amount of destruction a hungry elephant can cause -there's no mistaking where they have been with wide swathes cut through the dense bush. 

Next stop was the home of the mahoots on a riverbank, the river was pretty thunderous at the end of the rainy season and with a fair amount of recent rain. We had lunch and a rest, followed by the elephants coming down for their daily bath. On other occasions it is apparently possible to get in the water with them, but with the flow high, it seems like this wasn't so much of an option. Not that it stopped the mahoots. Some more banana feeding and watching and the elephants headed back to the jungle, while we were directed to our camp for the night, on a platform over the river. 

In mid-afternoon the rain came down, and we watched the water level rising, with some concern from Gillian about the safety of our perch for the night. The worrying was in vain, thankfully, and we had dinner by the side of the river where our guide, Chea, made us a pork curry in a fresh cut bamboo tube, cooked over the fire. It was super tasty.

Chea is from the local Bunong tribe, which has lived in the area for hundreds of years, well before the establishment of Cambodia as a nation and the arrival of Khmer people in the region. He gave us interesting insight into their culture and some of their way of life. This included typically marrying young, having many kids (his family of 3 kids is considered small), and heavy penalties for divorce (typically the contract payment specifies one elephant). He also described the method of swidden farming practised by the Bunong, and the importance of the transfer of knowledge from older people to younger generations, as well as talking about there animism beliefs.

The next morning we packed up and headed across the first of several rickety looking bridges on a hike through the jungle. James was excited when Chea made him a toy bamboo gun that operated with a very satisfying "pop", and shortly after taking off we also disturbed a troop of monkeys who hopped through the trees to escape. The paths were pretty treacherous after a lot of overnight rain, and slippery enough to slow us down considerably, even with the fresh cut bamboo walking poles provided by our sage guide.

We continued up hill and down dale, with no mistaking that we were in the jungle, headed to visit two impressive waterfalls. The first had a cliff in behind the falls, and a path through behind the waterfall to continue the trek. The second had a huge flow of water that meant it felt like it was raining close to the falls, and also a very slippery rock clamber up and out. Along the way we walked through a number of Bunong farms, concrete examples of the agriculture described to us the night before. They were broken up by a series of fenced off private properties, that are disrupting the traditional approach of the Bunong, in a familiar conflict between modernisation (possibly more accurately described here as real estate speculation) and traditional life. 

Lunch was at the smallest of the three waterfalls for the day, followed by a decent hike out, including more homemade bridge crossings that didn't thrill Gillian. As we climbed the last hill out to our ride back into town, we were treated to a display of the motorbike riding skill of the locals, riding up and down a road that didn't look remotely passable, complete with ruts that had to be 20cm deep. The "up" part included a load of bananas, unrealistically big for a single bike. At the top, we encountered another elephant, this time owned by the local village - thankfully not put to work except for trying to attract tourists. We were also treated to a group of tourist zooming past (on the good part of the road) on a series of quad bikes. We took the time to consider our moral superiority as they went by. 

Despite some slips and falls, and a lot of residual mud on clothes and boots, this two day excursion was certainly one of the highlights of the whole trip.