Dead dolphins, waterfalls, cross country motodop!

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Ok so Mondulkiri weekend!

This was quite a spur of the moment decision, but when I heard that friends from PP were going there for the weekend, I decided to tag along. Thursday 8^th March is International Women’s Day, and a national holiday in Cambodia, and although it would have made sense to make a bridge and go up on the Thursday and return on the Sunday, Women’s day is also (aptly?) Joe’s birthday, and a bigbig celebration was planned – Verné spent hers in PP so this was her Kratie bday party too – so no way was I going to miss a PARTY in KRATIE.

more set sun
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Being a national holiday, Joe’s staff had the day off, so me and Verné and David went in in the morning to help prepare the food for that evening – twas a free buffet with CHOCOLATE CAKE and CHEESE and lots of other delicious things, and cos he didn’t have enough serving bowls, we hollowed out water melons and baguettes to do the trick, so it also looked really pretty. But. Then. Verné got a call that 2 dead dolphin calves had been found in Sambo, 40ks away. She does post mortems on all the dolphins that die (always babies.... not good!), as it is still a mystery why they are dieing (infanticide is a possible cause, as well as fishing nets, chemical pollution, boat propellors...), but unfortunately we rarely hear about dolphin deaths until they’ve been buried a few days previously already. Which often means they are useless to science, and the mystery remains a mystery. Helpful really. These ones had been buried 5 days ago (and probably died a few days before that), and they were 2 out of the 4 dolphin babies still alive from this breeding season. One more has subsequently died, leaving just one in the whole country, up in Stung Treng! Anyway, it was Women’s Day, so no staff were around, so I ended up helping with the postmortem – we managed with 4 people – David always helps, and Bunna, who works with them. It was the most stinky disgusting foul rotten smell ever. I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. Two week-old decomposing dolphin corpses, covered in mud, and rotting in the sun (they were sent down to us in a sack on the back of a motodop...), and you think the smell can get no fouler, and then you cut it open and it just hits you again and ten times worse. We all had protective suits and masks and welly boots, and rubbed tiger balm under our noses, but to no avail. Still, you had to ignore it and keep concentrating – because these ones were so far gone (‘liquified,’ I’m told, is the correct term) there wasn’t much we could do with them, so it only lasted about an hour and a half. Plus clean up (ugh). Apparently with large fresh corpses PMs can go on for up to 7hours – how does Verné do this??! (She’s quite the specialist, having done these for years, and being asked to assist at PMs in Australia by the government, to teach ppl about them) Anyway, after this DISGUSTING experience we had a little bit of the afternoon left to go swimming and wash dolphin goo smell out from our nails / hair / skin, and were fully refreshed for the party! Anyone wearing a dress or a skirt got a free drink, including the men, and the photos (when they arrive....) will speak for themselves. Joe doesn’t look like this normally!!!!! (he wishes he did). Anyway, party was very very fun, music and dancing into the night, no Kratie curse (ready to drop into bed at 9 – 9.30), and definitely memorable! It’s a shame I can’t put up videos!

pretty
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The next day, bleugh, I took the bus to Sen Monorom, the capital of Mondulkiri (makes Kratie look like a bustling metropolis), an 8h (about 300km....!) bastard of a journey, over a track, sorry – ‘national highway,’ which would probably go down as dirt trail on most Western maps. Long and boring and slow – they are actually planning on overturning this stretch, but the surrounding area is not fully cleared from mines yet. Arrived and met with my friends, had a wander round the tiny town and ate tea in a place called ‘the middle of somewhere,’ before heading to our guesthouse for the night. Wow. My friends had come up the day before and chose this place.... it was so so cool!! It was called Nature Lodge, and was about 2ks out of town – and therefore in the middle of the countryside, and run by a young Israeli woman Shere and her Khmer husband Sokha. It was all wooden log cabins and pretty basic, but so beautiful – a total get away. Hammocks everywhere, sort of like camping indoors, especially given Mkiri’s famed sporadic electricity supply, so candles all over too. Ahhh! And they had the most delicious food – lovely soups and teas, and I am now addicted to tea with condensed milk and cinnamon. YUM!

Verné bday balloons at home
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On the Saturday we hired 2 elephant for the day ($15!) and went trekking in the jungle. Mkiri is the least populated province – something like 2 people for every square km, and covered in beautiful forests. Apart from the HUGE SWATHES that are being deforested at the moment. It’s also higher up that the rest of the country, so cooler (all things relative) in the evenings, and beautiful hilly landscape that sometimes looked like Africa (red soil) and sometimes like Wales (cloudy, rolling hills...). Our elephant ... guides?... were two Pnong boys – one 13 and the other about my age – but we felt totally under control (if uncomfortable...!) the whole time. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful secluded waterfall, where we swam in the pool, climbed behind the drop, and jumped off the top. So fun! Apart from when I decided to somersault off the top – I went round twice and fell flat on my face and belly in the water – ouch! The following day my friends went home, and I went with an English speaking guide to a Pnong village (not as gimmicky as I’d thought), and also on a half hour (but STEEP and STICKY) walk through the jungle to a totally deserted and beautiful waterfall called Kbal Preah (God’s head) where I swam and rested. Also went to the famous waterfall Bousra (near the Vietnamese border – not such a logical choice of attractions to visit, but that was my last day there so hey ho. And good practice for bearing long moto journeys... more later), which I wasn’t overly impressed with (ok, it’s tall, but no fun to swim in). I think I would have been had there been enough time (and had I had enough energy) to climb all the way down to the bottom of the second drop – much more spectacular, but never mind. Talking to the guide and to Sheré about the Pnong minority was very interesting – Mkiri is home to many of Cambodia’s hill tribes, the Pnong being the largest ethnic minority group there. Nobody’s quite sure what’s going to happen to them, as being an ethnic minority an all, everyone was trying to preserve their rights and language and help them out etc, and NGOs / guesthouses would try and employ a certain percentage of Pnongs, etc etc etc. Anyway, the Pnongs have a poor work ethic, have corruption and scandals that shock even the Khmers, and have huge problems with alcohol – including the WOMEN and CHILDREN (rice wine, the local moonshine is like 60% proof), so most people have found themselves backing away from trying to help them. They used to be nomadic, slashing and burning before they move on, but now there is no land left for them, so the village I went to had been there for 5 years already. It had a ‘school’ (empty...) with solar power, and a well (ACF), and I was invited into a woman’s house and met some of her ELEVEN children. The Pnongs are animist, and sacrifice animals for thousands of reasons – very complex religion I was told. Anyway, from what I understood, in order to keep their land and prevent the government from wanting to take it, Pnongs burn the areas of jungle they own, which would explain the huge swathes of burnt trees and columns of smoke rising in valleys. Anyway, all in all it was a lovely visit to Mkiri – loved Nature Lodge as well, especially since I got some very good discounts after offering to take back their business cards to guesthouses in Kratie :)

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I was headed home on the Monday, and this turned out to be (in the end!) just as fun as the trip itself! I wanted a short a trip as possible, so planned to travel by share taxi or pick up. The pick up I caught (we were NINE people in the cabin – five seats... and god knows how many outside...) however broke down 20 mins outside of Sen Monorom. We fannied around for an hour, trying to fix it, and then I got fed up, and had to wait another half hour before a moto went past headed back into town. Back at the market again, and it was only nine thirty, there were no vehicles to be found!!! Everything had already left!!! It didn’t really matter where one I got on was headed to, as they all have to go to Snuol from Mkiri, which is a couple of hours from Kratie, so I was planning on changing there... but nothing doing. The moto drivers where asking me where I wanted to go, and I was like KRATIE!!! So one offered to take me to Snuol. We arranged a price, and off we set! It was so much fun going up and down this winding red road through the hills on the back of a Daelim (I only had a tiny bag with my clothes for 2 days), and I listened to my ipod and was singing all the fast songs really loudly. We weren’t going much above 50kph, but so nice being able to weave THROUGH the bumps and holes, as opposed to snail over them, but after about an hour we came across another moto. We stopped to talk, and it turned out they were headed to PP. It made more sense of course for me to continue with them, so I transferred and off we went. This was a real moto, and we were going much faster, as this one could contest the larger bumps more easily – although I did stand up on the footrests a fair few times, and shouted at him to ‘please drive good I would not like to die.’ We’d passed the broken down pick up way back, and it was such a beautiful drive all the way to Snuol – me made it in under 3h! You really notice more outside, although every village we passed through was like WTF, a barang girl all red and dusty on the back of a moto, one singing in English, one in Khmer (my driver was belting out karaoke...). I was filthy filthy when we arrived in Snuol (sunscreen plus dussssst), and unfortunately missed the 1pm bus to Kratie by a whisker (the road between K and S is tarmacked and good), so got another moto from there to home. That was pretty speedy – I’ve done that trip in a car before in 1h15, but this took us just 55mins, which would have been about 70-80kph average (another traditional Khmer speedometer, stuck at 7kph), and I was home and clean and swimming in no time!

Ozzi, our kitten
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Anyway, it is five to EIGHT now, late late, so I will be off, and try sort out photos this week. Lost the new memory card I bought and can’t remember what was on it! oh well.

Hope everyone’s well, love Laura xxxx