Snapshot of March

Playing here with photos. Here is a compilation of our March life.

Zipping Up Khmer New Year

So, we've been working on this zipline thing for a while.

About a year ago I posted a grizzly Ben taking a maiden run on the first zipline.  We didn't complete that little project until just now, and in time for Khmer New Year. He installed another, and there is now a pair of ziplines that run from one hillside to another over a small valley. There are some spectacular views if you get yourself comfortable enough to look out while travelling about fifty metres above the forest floor. Here is a taste, but you should really come for yourself and try it out! Sorry about the wobbly camera and all the bits I should edit out if I knew how.. maybe one day I'll work it out.



And if you aren't too dizzy, here it he return trip


And more of the same.. just with a guy (our worker Nyep) in the picture.


Oh, and I need to tell about Khmer New Year.. next post.

Surviving Khmer New Year

We decided that we should host an open house for Khmer New Year. In Rovieng where we lived before, Khmer New Year was always an open house whether we wanted it to be, or not. Perhaps a thousand people would pass through our house to see our animals and how the strange foreigners lived. We were on the road to the local creek where everyone liked to “da-laing” (play-walking) so it was natural to stop by.

Living out in the middle of nowhere now, and wanting to show the locals what we are doing, we thought it would be a good idea to invite the people out to see and experience a little of what we mean by “ecotourism.” Ben worked hard to get two ziplines up and running and we figured we could charge a small fee to cover some of the operating expenses.

Well, the crowds came. Not quite as many as in Rovieng.  But being thirty minutes from the closest village and about one and a half hours to the district town, it is a quite a journey and plenty of people made the trip out: thankfully not a thousand, but more than enough and manageable. Many tried the ziplines (just over thirty people each day). More chose to watch!

We were prepared this time. I made some signs up with my rudimentary Khmer writing skills and we posted rubbish bags all over the place. Most were very kind and used the rubbish bags. I am still astounded at the lack of litter. So our lesson learned is that preparation pays.

In front of our house

Names, Definitions and Details

I started up this blog before we had a name for our enterprise. So I went to the most obvious and titled the blog, "Ben's Forest Project." Having been working in the development industry forever, our whole lives revolved around "projects" and this was Ben's latest!
Then later,in one of our brainstorming sessions, we came up with the idea of being treed: as in stuck up a tree; as in filling a place with trees.  Pretty much what we want to accomplish here.
So today, I have re-titled the blog (but not the address): Adventures in Being Treed.
And we decided on beTreed or beTreed adventures as our official name. Hope it works and doesn't confuse.
We are still working on getting a proper website going. Working with less than edge speed internet and far from my designer has meant things like that go very very slow. Meshes with everything else in our life at least.