The Cardamom Mountains and Forest

We go down to breakfast today and have a similar breakfast to yesterday, interrupted by the receptionist telling me that Exo, the Trailfinders’ rep in Asia, were on the phone and wanted too speak to us!  It turns out that, overnight, they had arranged our transfer to our next destination and our driver was waiting outside.  Although they asked us when we wanted to go, we were obviously reluctant to leave a driver waiting any longer than necessary and we knew it was at least four hours to the Canvas and Orchids Hotel, our next stop.  Although it put paid to visiting Kep this morning, we elected to finish our packing and get going straight away.

Bags loaded, we were on the road by about 9.30.  The road out of Kampot was good and progress swift, as I tracked us on the map.  Looking at our progress, I wondered how it was going to take so long to get to our destination and suspected that maybe time had been overestimated to allow for stops. A small turn off the main road, about 20 minutes into the journey and we were about to be confronted with the reason for the journey time!  The surface of the road rapidly vanished and we were left with large stones and pot holes, interspersed with parts of the ‘road’ that had been repaired by just adding a mixture of sand and small stones.  To say it was bone jarring was an understatement!  When we asked the driver how long this went on for, he said “30km”, in his broken English!  I thought he must have that wrong but apparently not!

To our relief, we finally bounced off the dusty dirt track onto a major roundabout where the road joined a main road that was mercifully well constructed. It had taken over an hour on the dust track and that had somewhat diminished our progress.  The main road from here went through vast tracts of palm plantation as this area is big on palm derivatives – sugar, oil, wood and charcoal.  We stop at a service station about two hours into the journey.  This time though, we are a bit more off the beaten track and unlike the very new, clean, western style stops were are used to, it is a more ‘local’ stop.  Our guide had something to eat there but neither of us were sure we wanted to risk the food!  It was probably OK but not the most sanitary of conditions, even for street food.

It wasn’t long after setting back off that we again turned off the main highway. This time we were heading through the Cardamom Mountains and we found ourselves back on largely unmade roads.  Here though, the reason the roads were in poor condition is that the Chinese are heavily invested in the area for economic reason, controlling the forest and also for tourism.  With very little at the other end of this road currently and not much in the way of traffic, it seems hard to justify what looks like a motorway being forged through the countryside.      The rest of the journey, the next two and a half hours, was spent on roads that were not dissimilar from the dirt track we experienced earlier.  There would occasionally be a bit of tarmac, for about 50 metres and then it would turn back to stone, rock and potholes.  It was like this for about 120 km up one side of the mountain range and down the other, until we finally reached the bridge that marked the pick up point for our boat to the hotel. 

We were at the foot of the mountain range and looking at the Tathi  River running through a wildlife reserve.  Our bags are taken from the car and we board a small boat via the hotel landing stage for a 20 minute journey down a beautifully clear river, about one kilometre wide in places and with lush forest either side.  As we round a bend in the river, we see our accommodation for the next three nights; some tents floating on platforms out in the river.  More glamping than camping, we knew we were in for a treat at this stay and were immediately glad we had switched the itinerary.

We were welcomed, as we have been everywhere we have stayed, by a cold drink, this time iced lemon tea with fresh lime.  The staff introduced themselves and the ethos of the hotel – it is an eco hotel and we were told how they have respected nature and the whole balance of the project by using local resources and putting back into the ecosystem as much as they take out.  We were shown to our room, which is a huge octagonal tent with a bathroom ‘wing’ attached to it, all floating on a pontoon tethered to the bank and with a deck out the front for sunbathing and wiling away the hours. There was also direct access to the river by a set of steps in the middle of the pontoon and we were encouraged to swim often!

We settle in and relax before our order is taken for dinner, all freshly prepared by locals from the village on the island to which we are tethered.  Dinner here is a  four course affair with a soup, typically a tom yum type soup first, then a starter, main course and fruit afterwards.  We had a choice of main courses but the rest was a set menu.

We asked for dinner at 7.30, after we had followed the strict order of turning lights on and off, in and around the tent, to avoid all the nasty bitey, flying things invading the tent! Corinne had obviously missed wine by this point of the holiday as she was hankering for a Sauvignon Blanc tonight, so we had a beautifully prepared dinner and bottle of wine whilst dangling toes in the sand and watching the stars come out over the jungle either side of the river.  We had landed in paradise!

An earlyish night for us as we were both tired from the lack of sleep the previous two nights and we returned to our tent, reversed the ritual for lights out and slept soundly until dawn.