JUNGLE ADVENTURES IN BOKOR NATIONAL PARK



24th June 07

Lots of photos to put up today. Spent last weekend on a trip down to Bokor National Park with one of the girls from work, we headed up into the park by taxi, stayed the night in a rangers 'hut' (big training center), and then spent 5 hours the next morning walking with one of the rangers (22 yr old Vichet) through the park. Had one close encounter with a large wild beast. As we were heading up the side of a valley, something large hurtled through the bush to our right, crashing bashing and going fast - could have been a wild pig or a big cat... we will never know... scary though, in an exciting way. We did a big bit of rubbish collection along the national park road at one point, and also wandered around the ruins of what was once a French retreat/resort in the area.

After our solo exploring we met up with a tour group (the cheapest way to get out of the national park), and had a bumpy ride down on the back of a pick up truck, before being deposited up river and floating down to the little town of Kampot where we stayed one last night. In the morning we hired a moto (scooter bike) and drove to Kep where we dipped our feet in to the ocean before racing back and jumping on our noon bus to Phnom Penh! Fantastic weekend! Great to be out of the city for a while - seeing the coast was something else, as was being up in the mountains and the forests - made me very happy!!

This was one of the better sections of road on our way up the mountain. The road was amazingly bad, in a very amazingly exciting way! Never thought we would die, but highly expected to write off the car. Turns out bottoming out several times, and covering uneven terrain at a ridiculous speed is the norm up this mountain.... as we found out on the way down, where I think Lindsay did think she was going to die (very insecurely attached to the back of a fast, bouncy truck!)

Me and Lindsay, exploring around Bokor National Park (one teeny bit of it).

This is looking into the national park, sea on the left, more Cambodia on the Right. Should be able to see a small temple along the ridge, but I think the photo is too small....

This is on the river trip at the end of our weekend, we had been up in the hills directly in front of us in this picture. Cambodia is beautiful! Still not used to seeing sugar palms around everywhere.