On our way to the Cardamom Mountains
Our driver for the Cardamom Mountains was only one hour early. We were supposed to be picked up at 10am, but he arrived at 9am instead. We had to speed up our breakfast and finish the packing of our bags. The ride would take about 3 hours, including a coffee stop.
The Cardamom Tented Camp had organised our transfer from Kampot as well as our return to Phnom Penh two days later. The tented camp is a joined initiative of 3 organisations. They wanted to set up a sustainable tourism development project which was needed to keep the tourism and conservation concession that they had obtained from the Cambodian government in 2009. The eco-tourism here contributes to the conservation of the area and helps to avoid poaching and logging.
Finally, we arrived in the middle of nowhere, where 2 men were awaiting us. They took our suitcases and we followed them via a path to the boat. Their normal jetty was out of order because the road had been closed. We had to wait for 2 German couples and then we could leave for the camp. Half an hour boat and we were there …
Cardamom Tented Camp
We first got an explanation by the camp manager after which we were taken to our tent. We had to laugh when we saw the number and name : tent nr 1 ‘’Tiger’, really? It was probably as close as I would ever get to a tiger in Cambodia :-).
At our request the staff had prepared a small lunch, fried rice with vegetables and a fried egg. Then it was siesta time. There was no air conditioning, but a fan. That’s of course better than nothing (not that we expected airco in the tent… ). The electricity in the camp was generated with solar panels.
Dinner was served at a long table for all guests at the same time. Guests that arrived during the same day had the same dishes. Guests that arrived the days before had other dishes. So we had already an idea what we would be eating the day after…
Night walk at Cardamom Tented Camp
We decided to participate in the night walk activity for which we had to take the boat to the starting point near the ranger’s station. We saw many animals: water dragons, civets, 5 snakes (all very poisonous and for one we even had to turn back) and many spiders.
Upon our return to the camp, we saw a large Tokha (super gecko) in the pantry…
We got up at 4am at night to see a super moth that would have the size of 2-3 hands. But unfortunately, she didn’t show up. We were however, lucky to have seen other smaller specimens …
Jungle walk at Cardamom Tented Camp
This next morning, we spent 4 hours in the jungle. The first hour was fun but after that, with 32 degrees, the fun disappeared a bit since we were completely soaked. Fortunately we had seen several animals but it had been impossible to photograph them due to the vegetation. We spotted ospreys, hornbills, kingfishers, spiders and lizards.
At the end of the walk we had to cross a stream by walking over a tree trunk. I told the ranger that I was afraid of heights and could not do that. He looked a bit surprised (probably the first time that he encountered this problem)… so when he told us that we then had to walk back in the same way as we had come, I put my mind to zero and walked over the trunk. The thought of having to repeat the same walk in the other direction in this heat was just too much…
After the walk, Koen decided to jump into the river for a swim. I did not want to join him since I had not forgotten the water snakes of the previous night. It seemed that these animals only came out during the evening. But I did not want to risk it (I had seen the snakes coming out of the water when the flashlights were shining on them… scary…). Koen was not the only one, also the other guests were happy to have this welcome refreshment before dinner. Most of them had chosen to do a kayak trip on the river in the morning.
Dinner took place in the same way as the evening before. It was nice to have a chat with the other visitors. We could discuss about the places they had already visited in Cambodia.
Another part of our trip came to an end, and we had to prepare our luggage again since we were traveling to Phnom Penh in the morning.
