You reach it by boat, leaving from a landing point at the Tatai bridge. Cue "The Doors" because you are immediately feeling like you're in the patrol boat in "Apocalypse Now."
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A small number of crafts were going up and down the river, some towing large barges.
The rooms were very nice. Funny story, they told us that a few years earlier a dam up river had broken and washed all the tents out to sea. Ok, funny now that we are not in them any more.
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And another funny story from that camp. There's a bar, and I was getting drinks, and I was interested in trying the local Cambodian Gin, Seekers, in a Gin and Tonic. But they only had the big name brands. Then the bartender says, "If you what something local, I have a local rice wine."
"Like... sake?" I asked.
"Like sake. I'll give you a taste." So he pulls out a shot glass and a reused plastic water bottle filled with some kind of yellowish liquid and pours some into the shot glass. I'm a little dubious, but I tried a sip. It was like drinking turpentine.
I start coughing and sputtering. "That's kind of raw," I said.
He replied, "Well, we don't drink it, we just use it for flambé."
We did one boat ride up the river to the Tatai waterfall, which were not quite as spectacular as described in our itinerary. It also turned out you could reach it by car, and there were a long line of food stalls. Only one or two were occupied, because during the dry season, not many people go there.
 Advertised |
 Reality |
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Early morning coffee on the deck was great, particularly when the sun was coming up. The jungle was shrouded in mist and you could see great hornbill flying along the river. We did one special sunset cruise that was not as nice as it looks like in the photo.
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And I did one early morning hike to the top of the nearby hills, theoretically to see birds. We had to kayak a short distance to the trail head. I brought the Canon and 600mm telephone lens, but we didn't see anything worth taking a picture of. The hike was still fun, and we saw tiny snow spiders (that are not really a spider) and a Giant Golden Orb-weaver (really a spider) that was bigger than my hand.
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Next we visited the Cardamom Tented Camp in Botum Sakor National Park... or what's left of it, as the Prime Minister has granted four fifths of the park to industrial companies. We also had to travel by boat to reach it, this time on the Preak Tachan river. This one felt more like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland.
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The camp was just off the river, tents you reached via a boardwalk to avoid venomous pit vipers, who as it turns out cannot climb, which is good because they can be pretty invisible. We almost stepped on one during one of our hikes.
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There were local trails you could do on your own (which we did) and one longer trail we kayaked to and walked back on. All the local flora had descriptions on it's various uses, particularly medical uses, as at times it's the only medicine the locals can get. They also warned us about "land leeches" that are apparently actual leeches, not ticks, and who secrete a anti coagulant that will leave you bleeding for hours. Fun. But as long as you had long leg pants and tucked them into your boots, there was nothing to worry about.
All the critter pictures are in the general critter section, so the below is just flora, the old abandon ranger station, kayaking, and one of many bomb craters left by US carpet bombing during the Vietnam War.
We did a night safari, but that is also in the critters section.
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