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.

The Hornbill Tree

The other day Ben was out hiking and he came across a wild fig tree loaded with fruit and birds.  On closer inspection he was able to make out that the tree was loaded with figs and he thought about 30 or so Pied Hornbills feasting.  After watching for a while, something spooked them and they all took off.  He then estimated that there were about 100 or so of the Pieds.  He also was able to identify a pair of Great Hornbills.  A really exciting spotting - these are huge birds-according to wikipaedia about 1 metre long, 1.5 metre wingspan and weighing 2-4 kgs.  They have the best personalities, if ever you get to meet a tame one - friendly and comical.  I imagine they are awesome to see flying.  Naturally, Ben didn't have the camera.

The same day he came across more troops of languars and some giant black squirrels.  Wild pigs have also been scuffling around the building site and digging up the garden attempt.  In general he has noticed that the languars are coming closer and closer to the building site - which is good meaning they are feeling more secure.  Lets hope we can protect them. He just told me today that he wants to fence in about 500 ha - the core of the core area to keep out hunters and their dogs.

They also have been trailing more banteng (the wild cows) in the last few days, but not sighted them.  They were very very close yesterday and found some big tracks - telling me they were from a wild bull. Of course I asked him how he knew it was a bull.  He asked me back why I always question him!?  He thinks I don't trust his tracking skills!  Anyway, the answer was that the bulls are significantly larger than the females.  Valid answer I suppose.

Ben's been out there for the last ten days.  He's had helpers from the local village and has been making trails and patrolling.  He gets a range of personalities helping him.  He has worked out that the older, ex-Khmer Rouge soldier men are much tougher and know how to work hard.  This one guy who is on the Community Forest Committee has been helping a lot and has stayed out a lot longer than the others, saying he feels bad leaving Ben out there on his own.  Some other guys are less active - one spending a lot of time during the day "conserving energy." Others are a bit free spirited.  Actually, mostly they are all very free spirited.  They are happy for a couple of days work then need to go and do their other jobs.  The soya bean harvest is starting and it is proving more difficult to get helpers from the local village.  And then soon after that they will start harvesting the rice which means everyone will be busy with that.  We will eventually need to be hiring people on a permanent basis which will be an interesting task.

So this week, they have a finished trail to the temple on the mountain (both terms, temple and mountain are used freely here - temple being a pretty small construction and mountain being about 300 m elevation, maybe).  But a trail to this place is progress.

Here are some pictures of the temple and cave taken in 2012 when we bush-bashed our way through.