February in Words

I just, literally just tonight, got back from 5 days at the forest with Ben.  Although by the time all these photos are posted up with our very slow internet it maybe days later.  But I did get these photos selected immediately with good intentions.  This time, I tried to take photos – and took a lot. Sorry about the fragment here – I have written as if you can see the pictures, so you’ll just have to imagine for now.

We had our second willing helper from Australia, Jamie.  He was stuck out with Ben for a good 2 weeks or so.  Managed to show Ben up at the pull up bar so Ben respected him!  Helped a great deal with the various odd jobs Ben was working on at the time – we were very grateful that he gave up his holiday to help us out in the bush.

One picture shows our Sarus Crane (“The Kreal”) in the back of the pickup.  We moved him and two peacocks out, the first for our relocation program we need to start.  We put the Kreal in the large pen (1 hectare!) we built for the deer.  He hated it.  Missed the company and didn’t like the forest there.  He escaped one day and Ben found him the next day about a kilometre away after hearing him trumpet.  He got put in the aviary with the peacocks and instantly calmed down.

A lot of the month has been spent chasing loggers and listening to chainsaws.  I think I have mentioned that there is a very large bounty (not sure if “bounty” is the right word) out for Tnong wood which is a type of rosewood.  The previous year or two, it was Gry-nuon – which is now pretty much extinct in Cambodia and Neang Nuong, nearing extinction.  So now, down the list is Tnong which they have now removed probably about 1,000m3 of wood from our little corner of Cambodia’s forest – and it is happening all around the country.  Sad Sad Sad.  The Community Forest Committee have caught a few chainsaws, a motorbike and a Ko Eun (mechanical cow) this month.  So you will see a picture of cut tree, a Ko Eun, and a logger sitting on his felled tree. 

There is a picture of a visitor dog to the Office.  The Office is the name of the first building that Ben is building.  It is officially the office of the Community Forest – we will move in there temporarily till our house is rebuilt. Back to the visitor dog – that means his owner is somewhere abouts.  Usually hunters, trappers or people collecting Non-timber forest products (NTFPs), resin, roots, something.  Ben doesn’t like these dogs as they are expert hunters.  Also, their owners like to start fires (to concentrate the animals for easier catching).  The fires have been another problem, one we’ll have to be fighting every dry season.  These are grass fires and not huge like we get at home, but they do damage trees and property if we aren’t careful.  Ben has been back burning and trying to rake leaves but the deciduous nature of this forest makes for many many leaves which he can’t keep up with. 

A picture taken in the village with lots of people is from the Community Forest Committee election day which they had this month to elect some more members who will hopefully be a bit more active to enable better sharing of patrolling duties.  Soon after this, a bunch of them came one night to catch a bunch of loggers – that is the picture of people sleeping everywhere around a fire.  Naturally the loggers got wind of this mass movement of troops and made sure they were silent that night. 

The floor of the building has taken forever (for me at least, waiting at home.  I told Ben I just needed a floor on that building to move out there (I have been single parenting for way too long and am getting sick of it).  I told him I didn’t need  a toilet or a kitchen – just a floor on the building.  Well, mid-February he had more than half the floor on. And he had about a quarter to go when we decided to pay a visit last Monday. 

Here I wanted to add details as to our timber “policy.”  We are building with timber.  I have mentioned our approach to gathering wood somewhere maybe but it won’t hurt to wire again.  It may seem somewhat hypocritical that we are involved in catching timber at the same time building with timber.  Our policy has been to only used wood that has died, has been left (tops, stumps, wood that loggers left due to imperfections) and wood that others have cut down for other reasons but are just leaving.  Lately, near the village, they cleared a lot of forest just for claiming (a paradox here that you must clear to claim land, even if you can’t work the land).  They are burning this wood (p-jek, a  great hardwood) to clear the land or it just burns up with the annual fires.  So it is all being wasted.  So sad.  It is making everything much longer to collect all this wood – the chainsaw men much prefer just to cut a new tree.  But slowly we are getting what we need.

The picture of the orange flowers is one we took on the trip out on Monday.  Brilliant orange blossoms on these forest trees.  Lots of trees are just starting to flower at the moment.  Things are dry – really dry but the flowers are coming and so it is starting to get beautiful.  We saw a pair of woolly necked storks in their usual mud hole (Ben sees them almost every trip in or out). And we arrived.  The last quarter of the floor was not finished.  He had managed to plane a surface of a table top – he does this just to see the grain of the wood.  But the floor was not done.  Let down. We survived though.  Kids were in the tent and we got the hut which Ben has been living in for the last 8 months or so. 

One big improvement was the new cooking facilities.  I had taken my extra stove out there months ago.  But we didn’t want to buy an extra gas can.  At home we have been using one can for our hot showers and another for cooking.  Well it has finally got hot enough to shelve the hot showers and free up the extra can for cooking at the forest.  It was quite a chore cooking over a fire for every meal out there so the stove has been a massive improvement.   I even have a counter!  That was there before but I didn’t really use it.  We ate vegetable curry, spaghetti, macaroni, fried rice, bread (from Rovieng) with egg, tomato and fish curry, some black eyed beans.  We ran out of food the last day since we were originally planning on going home on Thursday.  We ran out of salt.  Did still have Ben’s beans, rice, some cans of fish and onions, garlic, tomatoes and 3 packets of noodles.  Really lots to eat, just nothing I wanted to eat.  Again, we survived.

We were able to see progress in the garden and at our house site.  One exciting job which has been mostly finished has been the gravity flow water system.  Not quite reaching The Office, but all the way to our house site, the garden and the site for the lodge.  When he first finished it, it shot out the top of 12 metres of pipe placed vertically – meaning lots of head to spare.  There was amazing pressure.  This week, it had gone down for some reason yet to be identified but still some water flowing non stop into a ring at the house site and enough to water the garden.  Ben has planted bananas, mangoes, guava, limes, papayas, chillies, eggplant, and some other bits and pieces I can’t remember.  He had found this blow down spot covered with vines.  We hired some ladies to clear it.  Yes, ladies – they worked steadily to clear up the roots and growths.  And the ground is lovely.  It is right on the creek – hopefully won’t flood or flood too bad.  Forgot to ask Ben about that problem.  I might just have to start to learn how to garden. 

And then, there is the house site.  A ring.  A pile of sand.  A pile of gravel.  A guy from the village poured our house footings this week.  Jarrah and Amelie enjoyed playing in the ring of water.  We’ll have to plan a little pond and swimming pool with this water at the house.  Ben here is digging the first hole for the centre post.  An occasion to memorialise. 

Finally, on Thursday at about 5pm I got my floor.  The sawdust to sweep was some, but we got to use the new floor.  1.5 walls left to go, but I hate walls anyway.  We did a quarter of the building with full wall, and the rest just half wall.  But I’m quite happy with the open for now – especially for the ventilation required for the upcoming hot season.

Other odd pictures:  Jarrah and her found treasures; polar bear at the creek (yes, we have polar bears); trees in new leaf; and Jarrah and our new – first, table in our temporary house, maybe our study table – maybe our dining table.

And that has been our February – or mostly Ben’s February at the Forest.  Thanks for reading to the end here!

What's Happening

It has been awhile and things are moving so slowly here I feel there is not too much to report on.  Ben has been working hard.  The most difficult issue at the moment has been the constant influx of loggers from all over.  Chainsaws operate in the night time (and sometimes in the day) and so if he has some of the village Community Forest (CF) committee willing to do a night time patrol, they head out to look for these guys.  The wood is being sold to big trucks that export to the a country on the east of Cambodia.  There is lots in the Phnom Penh Post  if you do a search on "logging, Preah Vihear" about this issue and it is somewhat "annoying" to put it mildly.  Yesterday, they were out hiking and they came across a "ko eu-uan" with wood.  No one around.  They confiscated (hid it in the bushes really) a chain block that they had and in the process, Ben lost his camera.  So today they return, looking for the camera.  They passed 5 ox-carts and 2 drivers so about 3 others off somewhere else.  They said that they had bought resin trees (Diptocarp) from another village and were I guess going to cut them and take them (back to Siem Reap province).  However, they later came across the other men with axes and other implements.  The latest method is to use the old fashioned way with axes, then squaring up the logs with this implement called a "duong" and hauling them with oxcarts.  Slow, but silent.  Less chance of being caught.

The camera was found by the way!

Below are some pictures from December of what the problem is.  This is Pterocarpus macrocarpus Kurz wood (otherwise knows as Thnong in Khmer or a type of rosewood).  These three "ko eu-uans" were surprised coming around the corner.

Enough about logging.  Well actually, a problem with all the logging has been that the people that Ben would otherwise be hiring to saw up his wood have been busy.  He has asked them to make boards out of this timber which people cut earlier in the year for their land claiming activities.  They must cut the trees in order to claim the land after which they sell the land or just hang onto it.  The particular land is not really any good for agriculture but cut they must.  And so as we drive into the village, and to the north of Ta Bos, we see swaths of felled timber, soon to be burned - because, that is what they do.  This timber is good hardwood.  Not beautiful like the rosewood that is being exported but it is a good, durable hardwood.  And since it is just laying wasted, waiting for the fires, Ben has asked the chainsaw people to cut it for him.  But they are so busy.  In the last couple of weeks, he managed to have some finished and transported - almost enough to floor the building that we are supposed to be moving into.  Almost, but not quite.

So, in waiting for the wood, Ben finished off the water system.  This is quite impressive.  Over one kilometer of pipe has been laid - some buried, and some not, due to the very, very hard and rocky ground.  It starts just below the spring on the side of the mountain.  I'm not the best to explain this but at the head (as I understand!), they put in a ring (or two) with sand around and the pipe coming from the centre of the ring. This means that the sand filters the water before entering the pipe.  This is in a sort of waterhole made by the spring.  At the end of the pipe, water is flowing non stop.  He put three lengths of pipe up in the air to see how high it would push, and it was still bursting out the top.  Great pressure and maybe still a lot of head left. This is exciting as the garden has also been started and now there is running non stop water for our irrigation needs.. and household needs... and our swimming pool (another story there).

Yes, the garden.  We hired some women from the village to help clear a patch of land which is all overgrown vine from a blowdown tree.  It is a lovely sunny patch with really good (relatively good I should say).  These ladies worked really hard slowly whittling away the vines and brush for burning.  We have planted a few fruit trees and hopefully soon a vege patch so there will be more food to eat.

Our volunteer, Alex from Brisbane, via Avondale College, has left!  He toughed it out and survived on Ben's diet of beans and rice, somehow.  He took a lot of time to memorise about 1000+ words in khmer, an amazing feat and hopefully he can remember then when he comes back next.  Thank you Alex!

And, about a week after Alex left, another enthusiastic helper arrived from Sydney.  Jamie is currently out in the forest with Ben also living on beans and rice.  He can show Ben up in pull ups, so Ben is trying to out-hike him I think!

Silver Languar Sounds

I have this video of the Languars chirping at Ben.  You can't see them but you can hear their grunting - they are mad at him I think.  Close your eyes and listen as there is nothing to see except leaves and shakey footage.  They must have been just above in the next layer of the trees... but they are there!  The bark at the end there is actually a dog.

Zipline video

Well they finally finished that zipline.  I think it ended up being only 350m but here is a little 60 seconds of what you can experience if you come and visit us.  I don't think you are supposed to twist around - the cameraman couldn't manage to hold the camera and keep the pulley from twirling - twirled around so much that it ended up stopping in the middle - needs one of those little cameras that stick on your hat. Also, please excuse the bumpy nature of this video and the pixels.  Still learning how all this works!

You will see how grizzled Ben looks is which is pretty much what he looks like everyday these days.

We are very grateful for a volunteer who has come out to help, Alex from Queensland has given up his summer break to rough it out in the wilds here, living on rice and beans (or maybe not exactly living but existing - since he is probably sick of that already after 5 days - I'll see how he went when they return this weekend!)

Ziplines

Activity Update:  one 400m zipline almost up.  It was challenging rounding a rather large Jombok tree, first trying on one side, then on the other but it is up.  Tightening needed and then it should be a go. 

Part Two of the Visit

It has taken a little while to get to the second instalment of this series.  But I have the photos.  Our objective for the next morning was to hike to the temple which we used to call the Hidden Temple because we could never find it.  Now we have a cleared path almost right to it.  The path leads to a laterite wall and a steep incline which Ben is not quite sure how to approach clearing.  He wants to leave it somewhat untouched however it is still a bit of a scramble up.  We managed however.

On the way up we found all sorts of interesting artefacts from many hundreds of years ago.  There were bits of turned clay – possibly parts of windows.  There were the linga rock carvings (the base).  And just lots of square laterite blocks.  We proceeded up the bank and arrived at the entrance of the cave temple.  It is really just a couple of walls leading into a cave.  The villagers told Ben that not so long ago, the cave was full of Buddha and other sculptures.  The treasure hunters took whatever was valuable and dug around looking for more.  There used to be a dragon head with water coming out of its mouth at the spring also.  That would have been very cool to see.  In any case, it is all still interesting.  We kept stumbling across the lathed clay, and then a clay brick even.  Walking down, we went by the waterfall with drizzling water now that the rainy season has stopped.  At the bottom of the fall are three sets of feet.  Two sets of lions’ feet and one person’s feet – these all of course, carved in rock.

The morning’s hike was devoid of wildlife.  Probably something to do with the “I’m tired” noise that kept following us.  We did see a variable squirrel and that was about it.  He isn’t too exciting since we have one at home that terrorizes us all.    

We had a late lunch of spaghetti which even Ben’s workers ate.  The kids played in the creek.  All families need a little creek I think.  Kids have such fun playing in a creek.

Then Ben took me out to see the dam he wants to repair to make a lake.  It is an ancient dam and just a tiny bit of repair work needs to be done to fill it again.  Then just nearby there is some land where the garden is to be – an old slash and burn field, and the horses (ponies?) should have a field right by there, where there is the right type of grass for them.  Right now, it just all looks like forest, and tall grass.  Not too much fun to wade through.

The next day, Ben and the workers started up their trail building again.  Ben got them started and then came back to take us out to see where we’ll put our house and the lodge, and the swimming pool.  This is all very fun.  I imagine it feels somewhat like the pioneers felt: “We’ll build a house here and put our garden here.  Make a barn here and a field here for the horses and cows.  Dig the well here...”  We found a good spot for the lodge backing onto the little spot of evergreen forest but looking out on the deciduous dry forest.  Our house will be on the other side of that same forest, not too far away.  It has a view of the mountain and there is a good sunny spot to put out the solar panels and make a kitchen garden. We worked out the lay of the house – which is essentially the same as our current house but adding on an extra bedroom (for us).  We also laid out a first guest house which will be in between – just a single roomed stilt house with a loft for extra beds, and maybe a swinging bridge to a little viewing platform in a nearby tree.  Inside that evergreen forest is an old laterite block quarry which the ancients must have dug for their rock for building their little temples.  There are still a number of blocks scattered all around and you can see the squares where they dug out of the ground.

And that was that little excursion.  The girls found a fun climbing tree.

The last day of our visit was for departure.  We broke camp.  Ben had his guys laying out pipe from the creek to the camp for half the morning.  We then had an early lunch and commenced the trek back.  Again, Ben biked out with most of the luggage.  Then came back and picked up the girls.  Then came back and picked me up.  We got home that night a little after dark.  Dirty and tired. 

Ah, I forgot to mention the fun part about our drive back.  If you remember, we couldn’t drive out there in the first place, because Ben’s pickup was not working.  Well, we had to tow that back all the way to Rovieng.  That was certainly eventful.  Very slowly and carefully we drove along.  Apparently the brakes were not working properly either and so if I slowed down suddenly, which I did a couple of times, well then we could have a little prang.  Somehow we avoided any accidents.  One time he had to swerve to the side to avoid me when I slowed for a pothole and the rope went under his front tyre, severing some brake cable.  Finally made it back to Rovieng without any more events.  The local mechanic was able to get the car running by bleeding the fuel lines and then Ben took the car to Kompong Thom to fix up some other bits and pieces.  So now things are running smoothly on the pickup front.

The Visit

Finally the girls and I found a chance to get out to the forest.  Last week the sun was out enough to dry up the roads and to lull us into thinking that dry season was finally here.  Ben had been home for a few days and was taking a couple of workers out from Rovieng to help him.  The rice harvest is in full swing so the locals there aren't too free to help.  He managed to find two guys to help him and left home on Tuesday.  We planned to head out on Wednesday – giving him enough time to set up camp and get the guys going on the jobs to do.  Well the trip out didn't go to plan.  Well I should say the trip out went as expected.  The truck made it to the village.  They loaded up some stuff they wanted to take out to the work-site.  Drove up the road about twenty metres and stalled there in a mud puddle.  The fuel tank lines were a bit clogged apparently and our mechanic friend suggested the car needed a repair job done in Kompong Thom, three hours away.  Ah.  So.  Get off the truck.  Take only essentials which can be carried on a motorbike and workers head out of foot.  That was the plan.  Ben made two trips on the bike to take out stuff.  He got to the campsite and waited for the two men.  Oh, I need to digress here – and recall what happened earlier.

On Sunday night, one of the guys visited us.  He was very chatty and happy.  Said he’d be happy to stay out there two or three months.  Said he needed an advance.  Asked if it was OK to have a little drink after work.  He said lots of things.  He was a bit intoxicated.  On Tuesday morning, Ben was latish in leaving.  By the time he picked them up, this one guy again had been imbibing.

Well, by the time they got out to the village, he had sobered up a little.  They were supposed to walk out to the campsite and normally this takes about one and a half hours – it is about 8 km.  Ben had been back to the village twice and was waiting for them for quite a while at the camp.  He went out and found them on the road discussing whether to take the road that had the motorbike tracks or the road that the drunk guy thought was the right road.  He had been out before – so he “knew”.  He had drunk up his one litre of rice wine, which he had brought, on the road out and was more intoxicated than when Ben had last left him.  Ben offloaded their packs and went back.  He waited and waited.  Eventually they turned up just before it turned dark.  The workday was done.  We decided to give them another day to get started before we headed out – so that would take us through till Thursday.  Wednesday night it poured rain.  It had been a few days of sunny, sunny weather – getting cool but those lovely sunny winter days that I love about living here.  Well Thursday was a dreary day with rainstorms on and off.  A curl up in bed hot chocolate day.  We did school though.  On Friday morning, however, the sun was out and we started off.  I had loaded into the car two single mattresses and my extra stove and a gas tank.  Just in case the road had dried up enough to cross the river (creek really but they call it a river).  We met Ben in the village at midday.  The road was still slippery at that one place.  Sad.  So we drove out to the river-creek and parked the car.  Taking essentials only.  Ben had the motorbike so we didn't have to backpack everything in.  We hiked a little ways and got to ride on the bike the rest of the way.  And finally, we are in the forest.

The hike out was beautiful.  We crossed the swinging bridge which Ben built last April.

I finally saw the corduroy road which he built to cross the swampy part of the road.  Looks like fun in a car!

The dryland forest is in full bloom.  These are mostly tiny little ground cover flowers of many different kinds.  Jarrah was stopping and picking them all.  I tried to take pictures of each kind.

Forest on the hike out – this is mostly a monoforest of Trike (the English or the Latin name I do not know!)

So, here is the campsite from afar which I took as I walked in–you  can see the in construction building on the right, the temporary shack in the middle and the warehouse on the left.

So, that afternoon we went for a walk on the new trails which they had been building and went to see the site for the lodge which was off-trail through nice tall itchy grass!

We came back – had a dinner of canned fish fried with tomatoes and garlic and rice and we had a lovely bathe in the little creek there by the campsite.  We all four slept in one mossie net on a queen sized mattress.  The stars that night were all out and shining.

This is getting rather long so I’ll keep the rest of our adventures for another post.