Kirirom National Park, Cambodia

(Travelogues--Cambodia)

[A couple years ago, I got the idea to go through my archives to find material for my  travelogue project. Somehow, I missed this one at the time.  But I've just realized my error, and am correcting it now.  From December 4, 2011, here is my trip to Kirirom National Park in Cambodia.  To protect the identity of all my friends, I've replaced all names in the narrative by *******]

Sunday, December 4, 2011
Woke up at 6AM, which is ridiculously early for a Sunday.  But ******  had organized a little informal trip to Kirirom National Park, and so we all had to meet at 7AM.

I showed up at 7 AM and met everyone else there.  

We took the bus.  I slept most of the first two hours out there. 

The bus stopped at one point at the side of the road for people to get out and pee.  Then when we came back into the bus, ******* announced that the brakes weren’t working, but that we were going to proceed slowly anyway, and another bus from Phnom Penh had been ordered to come out and intercept us.

But as it turned out, the bus couldn’t get even get into gear.  Apparently the gear box was broken as well.  So we were stuck on the side of the road.

It turned out we had two hours to wait until the next bus came to pick us up, during which time we all slowly moved out of the bus and began to explore the scenery around us.

It did give us some time to explore the Cambodian countryside a bit.  And I so seldom get out of Phnom Penh and take in the countryside, that perhaps it was good for me to look around a bit. 

We were off a main road, so we weren’t completely in the middle of nowhere, but we were still 2 hours outside of Phnom Penh next to places that were obviously rice farming communities.  

We wandered about and looked at the scenery.  There were lots of little rice fields, with palm trees separating the various rice fields, a river going through, and a mountain way off in the distance.

****** commented to me, “This is your stereotypical South East Asian scenery all right.”

“And here’s me without my camera,” I replied.  (I had once again decided to leave my camera back home.)  [Editor's note: I would later get copies of photos from friends, and that accounts for all the photos you are seeing on this post.]

Every tourist book you’ll ever read on Cambodia recommends to be very careful wandering off the main roads in the countryside because of the number of unexploded mines still out and about.  So I was perhaps overly cautious about exploring to begin with, but eventually decided that wandering down well used paths was probably pretty safe.

****** got a call from ****** who had managed to find a local shop a bit down the road.  Word spread from person to person, and eventually a big group of us walked 10 minutes down the road.

There was a small shop selling canned drinks, with two hammocks outside.  ***** got one hammock, ***** got the other, the rest of us just sat around the shop.

There was a small village across the road where there was a wedding going on in the temple, and we could hear the traditional Khmer pop music being blasted on speakers from across the road.  I quite liked it actually, it gave the place a bit of an atmosphere.

I eventually got bored hanging out with the other guys in this shop, and wandered up and down some of the local footpaths among the rice paddies a bit.  (I wasn’t the only one who did this.  Some other of my co-workers had been doing this as well).  The local village kids were obviously relatively unused to seeing foreigners—at least not in the same numbers as in Phnom Penh.  They would run up to you and shout “Hello” and were very friendly.  

(Although as I walked away, I think they were trying to ask me for money, because they pulled out 500 riel notes, gestured to it, and then gestured to me.  I don’t think they were desperate for money necessarily, at least not by the standards of the Cambodian countryside.  But in Cambodia perhaps foreigners are just associated with free money.)

After 2 hours, the replacement bus finally arrived.

******* was by this time furious about how we had been waiting two hours.   He went on and on about how the Khmers were useless and lazy, and how this mess-up with the buses was just typical of them.

I didn’t argue with at the time, although in my opinion the incident with the buses wasn’t really the fault of anyone being lazy, it was just that the buses were all in bad condition.  But it’s a 3rd world country, so what are you going to do?  Sometimes the buses aren’t brand new and aren’t in prime running condition and sometimes they break down.

***** was also very upset about how the new bus drivers kept smiling when they arrived and when they told us they were sorry.  Even though ***** knew that smiling when apologizing was part of South East Asian culture, (and he said so) it still aggravated him anyway.

The bus turned off the main road and preceded on a smaller less well maintained road that eventually led up the mountain to the Kirirom National Park.  ***** warned us this road would be bumpy, and as it turns out he wasn’t kidding.  We were all bouncing up and down on our seats (and I think all beginning to feel a bit nauseous.)  

By the time we actually got to the park, I think we were all feeling a bit nauseous and grumpy.

The plan had been to take lunch by the waterfall, and then do a hike.  Because we had lost 2 hours on the way up here, we had to scratch the hike.  

***** was bitterly complaining about how the whole day was ruined, and we had essentially spent the whole morning in transit only to have to turn around and immediately come home again.

I took his point a bit, although I regarded the unscheduled 2 hour stop as a bit of an interesting experience, so I wasn’t too upset about it.

Anyway, Kirirom National Park is a national park up on the top of the mountain.  

Some of us noticed that there were actually pine trees up on this mountain (something we hadn’t seen in Cambodia before, and which reminded us of the vegetation of our own countries instead of Cambodia’s tropical climate).  But ***** , who had done the research on this place, pointed out that, according to the tourist brochure, Kirirom National Park is one of the few places in Cambodia where pine trees grow because of the cooler temperatures up in the mountains, or something like that.

The waterfall was a bit of a disappointment actually.  It was called a waterfall, but wasn’t what any of us would refer to as a waterfall—just a river cascading over some rocks in some places.  

But it was cool to see this big river (apparently from a mountain spring) weaving it’s way through the mountain plateau.

There were little pavilions set up for picnickers.  As in most of these Cambodian parks, you have to pay to use the pavilions.  

Some of the kids were going swimming.  I had my suit with me, so I figured I might as well take a dip.  

There wasn’t really a changing area per se.   ***** had been holding towels up around his kids when they were changing, but  *****  kids were little and plus I didn’t have any towels.  I decided to just lay some of the tarps (from the pavilion) over my legs and change under them.

It seemed like a good idea but was much more awkward than I thought it would be.  Getting my shorts off was one thing but putting on the suit, and getting the right legs through the right holes, proved a bit more challenging blind, plus moving my legs around raised up the whole tarp.  ***** commented sarcastically, “Yeah, that doesn’t look awkward at all.”

Once I did finally have my suit on, I went for a dip.  I ended up being the only adult from our group that did take a swim in the river.  The others said it was too cold to swim in, but I’ve swum in much colder rivers in my time.

So swam back and forth.  Then wandered around the rapids part of the river a little bit.  (At one point I turned my ankle on a unseen rock beneath the water, which caused it to hurt all throughout the next week)

Hung out with the gang.  Changed under the pavilion tarps again.

And then we had to head back.

Got nauseous again from the bumpy roads out of the park (we had to stop the bus at one point so someone could run out and throw up.)  Also we got caught up in a traffic jam returning into Phnom Penh.