Ecotourism comes to Cambodia

Mountain bikers can reclaim wilderness that once belonged to illegal loggers and poachers. Hidden in the foothills of Cambodia‘s Cardamom Mountains, the village of Chi Pat is now home to a mountain biking experience that is unparalleled in trail and impact.

This new program is the result of cooperation among Wildlife Alliance (formerly known as Wild Aid), Asia Adventures (a Cambodia-based adventure travel company) and the villagers of Chi Pat. Off-road cycling tourists are expected to bring a sustainable source of income to the villagers while exposing guests to some of the world’s last remaining virgin wilderness.

Chi Pat is two hours from Phnom Penh by boat and is portal to old logging routes, undulating trails and streams and shallow rivers. Ride through bamboo thicket, rain forest and hills while gazing upon waterfalls, bat caves and waterfalls. A lucky few will see rare wildlife, such as elephants.

Simply by mountain biking in Chi Pat, you can help the villagers reclaim their home from years of abuse by illicit tree-choppers and hunters. Merely enjoying yourself has never been so powerful.

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[Photos thanks to Asia Adventures]

The land of badly behaving Buddhists

Cambodia’s dictator for life prime minister, Hun Sen, recently appealed to the country’s Buddhist clergy, telling them to clean up their act. The PM told a convention of top religious leaders that the actions and poor judgment of individual monks has given the whole religion a black eye.

He cited several situations including monks accepting roles as dancers in a music video and an abbot using offerings of money to buy himself a new car. Also, disputes between monks and laypeople are on the rise, according to an independent social analyst.

Hun Sen concluded his address to the holy people by saying “These are individual monks making problems. Citizens should not consider it an issue of the whole religion, but equally, we must not be careless about this issue.”

Buddhist monks have long been revered in Cambodia. Many have become involved in various forms of social work. However, it seems that the recent economic development has affected the religious world as much as the general public.

[via Phnom Penh Post]

Invasion of the Bag Snatchers in Phnom Penh

If you’ve been to a backpacker ghetto anywhere in the world, you’ve seen them. For fear of having their belongings snatched, they guard their bags carefully. Perhaps wearing their rucksacks in the front and wrapping an arm around it for extra security. That might seem like overdoing it. After all, who is going to rob a backpack with a bunch of smelly clothes and out of date edition of Lonely Planet?

But the ease with which a practiced thief can snatch a bag is surprising. All two thieves on a motorcycle, perhaps with a razor blade, need to do is slice a strap or grab a purse or camera and pull hard. Then it’s bye-bye dirty clothes (or camera or passport or cash).

Bag snatching is on the rise in southeast Asian cities like Phnom Penh. It has always been a problem, but things are especially bad now that inflation has put the economy into a downward spin. Some thieves have completely abandoned the timeless art of bag snatching, and instead simply knock their victims off their motorbikes and make off with the loot before the unfortunate rider(s) can recover. Looks like it might take more than wearing your pack in the front to avoid a nasty situation these days. But that’s all part of the fun of travel, isn’t it?

Source

The Slowest Train in The World

Cambodia has only one passenger train that still runs, and I’m on it right now.

Calling it a passenger train is a bit of a misnomer, though. Most of the few seats still attached to the floor are piled high with exotic fruits: durians, pineapples, and several others that I’ve eaten before but can’t name. I think one’s a jackfruit, and another might be a soursop.

Half of the back car is full of lumber which I helped load a few stops ago. I almost crushed my foot.

The train is slow, probably the slowest train in the world. The fastest I clocked it with my GPS was 17kph. That’s fast enough that if you want to take a jog you can just hop out the back and run along.

The journey from Battambang, a city reasonably close to the Thai border, to Phnom Penh takes four hours by air conditioned bus. I’ve been on the train for 17 hours now and there’s been no word on when we’ll finally arrive. The official timetable claimed it would be 5 hours ago.

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As I write I’m sitting in one of the wood benches, which puts me in the minority. Most people string up cloth hammocks in front of the open windows or ride on the roof.

I rode on the roof for a good part of the day. The local kids showed me how to jump from car to car as if I was part of an Indiana Jones movie.

When I arrived at the train station this morning there were a dozen other foreigners. Most of them stayed as long as Purset, the big stop 5 hours in which allows the rest of the journey to be completed by bus.

Four of us are left. My friend Todd, a lonely planet writer named Andrew, and Laila who has been traveling for 4 months and is expecting to travel for another 12. Her seat is a huge bag of charcoal that she claims is more comfortable than my bench. She’s probably right.

The train probably won’t run for much longer. Giant holes in the roof douse everyone and their cargo when it rains. No attempt is made at repairing the gaping holes in the rotting floor that expose the wheels and the track below us.

We once stopped unexpectedly because one of the four car’s bumpers had jumped onto another one’s.

You might be wondering why anyone would ever ride this train, and you might be surprised that I couldn’t possible recommend it any more. Why?

Because THIS is how to see Cambodia. Not all of it, of course, but it’s a whopping serving of authentic Cambodian life.

From the rusted roof of the train you get an unrestricted view of the beautiful rice paddies that cover the countryside. You watch as families work together to harvest the rice and direct their Oxen.

Children run up to the train and wave and yell out the few English phrases they know.

The train makes a few short stops, mainly to load or unload lumber and fruits, and vendors run up with trays of food, illuminated by kerosene lanterns.

I’ve been to a lot of countries, and I’m not sure I’ve met friendlier people.

When the monks saw that Laina had only bought one bag of steamed rice, they bought her another bag and some eggs. The woman sitting near us insisted on holding my flashlight while we ate.

When a pineapple vendor started cutting up one of her pineapples on the train, I hurried over to buy it. She gave it to me and then absolutely refused to take money.

Everyone smiles and tries to talk to us. They show us how to tie our hammocks and warn us when the train is about to leave after a stop.

Traveling can be more about the journey than the destination. I haven’t been to Phnom Penh yet, but I don’t know how it will be more memorable and enjoyable than the ride over.

If you’re in the area and you want a train ride of a lifetime, check out this page on seat61.com, which is an amazing resource for traveling by train, bus, or boat.

UPDATE: It took 24 hours total. A parting word of advice – buy a hammock in Battambang before you go. The locals will show you how to hang it.

Check out the pictures from the trip: %Gallery-26075%

Photo of the Day (04.08.2008)


One of my strongest memories of my trip to southeast Asia was being chased by a herd of monkeys in Vietnam. It was kind of funny at first, until we realized how persistent they can be when they want some food. I think I can honestly say that hungry monkeys lose the ‘cute’ factor pretty quickly. Still, they’re kind of charming in photos like this one from Geotraveler. So what do you think? With innocent monkeys in Phnom Penh guzzling Fanta like it’s the sweet nectar of the Gods, is the obesity crisis going to start affecting Animals too?

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