The Cambodian Jungle Life
- stemeillon
- Nov 28, 2024
- 10 min read
Updated: Nov 30, 2024
In this post I’ll describe trekking in the jungle of northeastern Cambodia for three days, exploring traditional jungle survival skills, and experiencing rural Cambodian mindsets.
After the dry cold of Mongolia, coming to Cambodia was a welcome change in climate. I came to meet up with my dad, sister, and her close friend in an effort to reschedule a family trip that was cancelled years ago due to Covid.
When they arrived to meet me, we took a share taxi north to Banlung where we stayed in a wonderful guest house called Family House, run by an adorable man named Mr. Puthea and his family. After a day of rest we took off on a three-day jungle trek with a guide name Samai and his ranger Mr. Kim. Of note is the importance of guides in the Cambodian jungle--there are lots of stray unexploded mines and it is therefore of the utmost importance to know where you are walking. About our guides: Samai is 30 and used to work for an NGO where he would teach isolated villages about the hygienic and health benefits of using a toilet and filtering water. He has more influence than white people in this because he is from an ethnic minority himself and can draw on relatability to teach others. Now he’s been guiding for seven years, although he thinks he might return to the NGO in the future; for now he splits his time between working as a guide and helping his family on their cashew and rice farm. He has two children, ages 12 and 14, and two years ago he had a complicated time going through a divorce seeing as it illegal in Cambodia and thus requires the involvement of a court. Mr. Kim is 27 and married with children as well. He and his family live at his father-in-law’s house with a grove of banana trees in the back, and he had only guided two treks before ours; otherwise he works on his family’s cassava farm.
Now about the trek.
Day 1
To get to the jungle we squeezed the four of us into a Tuktuk and drove an hour north until we got to a river. Here, we met Samai and took a motorized canoe for another 45 minutes up the Tonle San river to meet Kim and start the trek. We packed our bags and got moving. Samai and Kim were very confused because they said my dad had three daughters with different fur (hair), but we explained that only two of us were related (although my sister and I do have different fur). Samai asked my name and said I must get into a lot of trouble; I didn’t understand at first but it’s because he thought my name sounded like “stealer”. I thought it was hilarious but he later reflected that he felt guilty because he didn’t want me to feel like I was a bad person; it was sweet.
It was very hot and humid, but wearing long pants and closed shoes was better than flip flops and shorts because of leeches. We hiked through dense, lush forest for several hours until we arrived at our first camping spot along a rapid river. Here we took some time to swim and stretch, then helped setup our hammocks and make dinner. We ate smoked buffalo jerky, fish that Kim caught in the river, and then made a bamboo soup. It had pumpkin, eggplant, cucumber, chiles, lemongrass, and some other random leaves that Samai picked off a tree. We stuffed all of these ingredients into a big tube of bamboo and then put the tube in a fire for upwards of an hour, turning it every so often.
We had a little fire going in an attempt to divert the mosquitoes, although Samai said that he had given up and donated his back to their cause. He took us to hunt for red ants, which you grab off the tree, preferably near their nest, and eat just like that. Sometimes I felt the ant crawling around in my mouth, or its little legs would poke into my cheek. The flavor was tangy and smoky and it was actually really good, we collected some later as a seasoning/garnish for our dinner.
My favorite part of the evening surrounded the drinking of homemade rice wine, or happy water as they called it (sra sabai sabai), which included pieces of medicinal tree sap that Samai chopped with Kim’s machete. We drank out of cups they made from bamboo and listened to music from my dad's phone, amplified by a bamboo “speaker” crafted by Samai. So many uses for bamboo, it's crazy! New favorite material! A guide from a group down the river came to drink with us, stating his clients were too old and no fun. He introduced himself as Mr. Blanket (a joke name) and Samai said we should tell him our name was Pillow. This stands out to me now because two weeks later someone completely unrelated made the exact same joke. We had a really funny time that night with lots of happy water. And they say cheers (chulmoy) almost every time they take a drink, which was funny too. We learned how to say “I really don’t like mosquitoes” (khnom al chol chet moo te) and I like happy water (khnom chol chet sra sabai sabai)!
We slept in hammocks suspended from a bamboo structure and hung mosquito nets above us. The sun went down around 6 and we were in bed around 9:30, although it felt much later.
Day 2
We woke up with the sun, around 5-5:30, and ate a lovely breakfast of eggs, bread, and fruit. I was astounded first of all that Mr. Kim successfully transported a bunch of raw eggs through the jungle in his rice-sack-backpack. We took a bite from the bread and ants started crawling out (not the yummy kind), so we had to shake it out before we ate it. We took our time and started hiking a couple of hours later, opting to take the longer route they proposed that went deeper into the jungle. There were so many leeches on this day, and Samai and Kim were getting so many on their feet due to wearing flip flops. At some point Samai said his stomach hurt (from the happy water) and stopped to cut some vines with his machete which excrete a water that helps sooth the stomach. We also ate a plant he saw that resembled a heart of palm and had the texture of an artichoke heart; it was great, no idea what it was.
As we trekked, my sister Charlotte asked Samai what to do if she sees a snake—should she run or slowly back away? He looked confused and said, you eat it. It was her turn to look confused so she asked again and he repeated, yes you kill it and then eat. so yummy. They went back and forth like this and she resigned to simply hoping she didn’t encounter one on the trail.
We went faster than they anticipated and arrived at the next camping spot around 14:00 to eat lunch, we were all ravenous. Charlotte, Anni, and I were quick to hop in the river, not only to clean ourselves off but also to relieve the itching and burning we’d amassed from cuts, mosquito bites, and leech suckage. Oh also we saw a monkey that morning! They said it’s easier to see them in the morning when they leave their homes to go find food, although they don’t always see them.
For lunch we ate instant noodles and admired an extremely poisonous Lorax-esque caterpillar.
We lazed around for the duration of the day and saw how to weave fish nets from bamboo, which Samai and Kim setup in the river by weighing down with rocks. We also collected bamboo shoots, boiled them for an hour or so until they became soft, and ate them with a salt/pepper/lime sauce. Of note, Cambodia is famous for their pepper, which France exported en masse back in the day. For dinner we ate similarly to the first night, some sort of boiled vegetables, bamboo, softened buffalo jerky, lemongrass, and rice. Charlotte ate a separate food with no meat that they called morning glory and that looks like a hollow green bean.
That night we all got into our hammocks and I tried to ignore the creaking of the bamboo structure. About 5 minutes later we heard a loud crack and mine and Anni’s butts hit the ground! We were both a little rattled but unharmed. Charlotte, Anni, and my dad moved to a neighboring bamboo structure while I shifted my hammock closer to Samai to try and avoid the cracked part. Then Mr. Kim was cold so he lit a little fire underneath his hammock. We were appalled but it’s quite common here. No one slept so well that night, between the intermittent groanings of the bamboo and the weird angle of the hammocks. Also my dad saw a black scorpion under his hammock which no doubt freaked him out a bit too.
Day 3
We woke quite early so that we could start trekking before it got too hot, since the last leg of our hike would be through exposed cassava fields. There were monkeys again that morning! We also tried a catfish and crab soup that they made from the fish they caught in the traps and added lemon-y leaves, garlic, and beans, it was reallllly good. Then off we went, keeping a steady and quick pace so that the leeches wouldn’t have time to latch on. Just writing about the leeches is making my feet itch again. Then we crested a big hill and had a beautiful view of the jungle through the trees, during which time a leech climbed up my dad’s bamboo hiking pole and latched onto his finger crevice.
I started talking with Samai about the wildlife in Cambodia and he told me that although there are tigers and bears in the jungle, many of them have retreated to its depths to avoid hunters and trekkers. We passed a couple groups of hunters during the hike and Kim knocked his machete on the trees near their campsite to inform them of our presence, although they sleep during the day anyway. Samai told me about how, when his father was growing up, they had a family elephant to help them bring wood back from the jungle to their farm. Since they were seven to share the elephant, it worked a lot and died at 90 years old, even though they can live 150-200 years when they are not worked so hard.
While we were walking, Samai grabbed a huge cricket midair and plucked off its legs so that it couldn’t escape. At some point we took a break and he put the cricket on his bag while he made a fire in the middle of the trail to roast it. Charlotte saw the cricket and was mortified. “Oh my god this poor cricket doesn’t have any legs! How could this happen? It’s so terrible!” She scooped it up and put it on a log. Samai and I made eye contact and stifled a laugh, no one had the heart to tell her. But then we ate it and she quickly realized. It was really good, had a nutty flavor.
Sure enough, the last part of the day was under direct sunlight and we were all happy to make it back to the boat. We went 15 minutes up the river to Kim’s village, where he made us lunch at his house. The homes there are made of wood and supported high up on concrete or wood pillars. In his village there are about 450 families, each with 5 children, and often many families live together in one house. He let us go upstairs and we saw that there was only one bed, and I later learned that they sleep directly on the wood floor because it’s much cooler than on padding or a mattress.
We went to have a couple of beers at a spot nearby and Samai showed us the “jungle bikes,” which are standard motorbikes that they alter themselves. They change out the gear ratio so that they have much more torque than speed and then move the seat backwards to create a favorable balance for steep and gnarly paths in the jungle. The bikes typically have four manual speeds. They remind me in a way of their jungle tractors as well, which are long wooden frames attached to an engine and are quite funky looking to the outside eye.
The village school was down the road, sponsored and built by a nonprofit called United World Schools. Children go to school in half day shifts; the young children are from 7-11 AM, and the older students from 1-5 PM, and this way they work the other half of the day for their families. When I asked at what age kids start helping their families, Samai answered “as soon as they are able.” In this school they teach students Khmer, the official language of Cambodia, because the students are one of many ethnic minorities that only speak their own language (in this case, Kachok). We showed up during their lunch break and played football with a group of boys and then went and talked to the girls inside. The girls prefer to stay inside when they can because they believe paler skin is more beautiful and they don’t want to get too dark. They explained to Samai that only about 24/65 students come to class regularly because the others do not have pens, books, or backpacks, or sometimes a way to get to the school. Charlotte sprung at the opportunity to buy them school supplies and Anni and I split the cost with her. For over a year’s worth of supplies for the 65 students it cost us each about $20… it’s baffling to think that what we can pay in one hour for a few drinks back home equates to some peoples’ ability to pursue an education. Makes me never wanna go to a bar again.
We then went back to the boat and to the original drop-off spot 30 minutes away. Samai said it’s really not safe to put someone up front with the Tuktuk driver and offered to take me back on his motorcycle. While the others left in the Tuktuk, he and I went to eat with some women in the village. They were sitting around a bowl of crab salad with bamboo, cucumber, and a fire-breathing amount of chili. I had a few bites and spent the next twenty minutes taking deep breathes and nursing a beer. I then climbed onto the back of Samai’s bike—it was my first time on a motorbike, although I’d been on a moped before, but I was lightheaded from the post-jungle beers. It was funny to me that Samai thought it was safer to be tipsy and without a helmet on the back of a bike than to be a fourth person in a Tuktuk, but at that point I really had no other option. And anyway it was super fun.
When we got back we had yet another beer with Samai and Puthea at his guesthouse (they are super frickin cheap here, usually about $0.50-$0.75, and half the time the tab on the beer has a little discount that you can redeem for another beer). We all showered eagerly and I scooped the dust goop out of my eyes from the bike ride. I also gave Samai my Swiss army knife; he used it during the trek because he didn’t have a knife and I felt like it was the best way to thank him for his friendship and for his expertise in the jungle. I can easily buy another little knife in my travels. We all said goodbye over dinner and got ready for an early bedtime.
Needless to say we all slept well that night before getting up at 6:00 for a 7:00 AM “bus” to Preavihear. The jungle was truly an incredible experience that puts into perspective the challenges of trekking on a defined trail back home (with no leeches); and we learned lots about the simpler lifestyle that people live there.
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