One of the things that people often do when they are in Sen Monorom is go trekking into the jungle. I signed up for an overnight jungle trek the second night I got there with some people from the restaurant near the centre of town. The next morning 4 of us climbed into an SUV and the owner drove us out to one of the surrounding villages to get our guide. Below is the house that " Mr. Hong" lives in. We went in there and met his family then went with him to a house a little ways down to buy some rice whiskey for dinner.
Then many hours of hiking though the jungle.
We stopped for a rest at some vines which we swung around a bit on
This is where we had lunch and an afternoon swim.
When we came out of the water one of our guides lit a tree on fire. We discovered later that many of the trees in the area had similar holes in them that the local people used to collect the sap which can also be used as a fire starter.
Some more hiking we traversed under a waterfall along the way
Our guide preparing our dinner. He cooked up some Cambodian zucchini and pork. He added some branch thing that he picked up while we were hiking. He made the same meal for Gordon Ramsay when he made a trip to Cambodia and did the same trek that we did.
They throw all the vegetables and some of the meat in some bamboo and roast it all over the fire. I was wondering why the bamboo never burned through and it eventually did when he was stirring it at the end. Both of the guides seemed to be very surprised so I guess it doesn't happen very often.
After dinner we set up hammocks with built in mosquito nets where we would be sleeping for the night. Then we went on a little jungle trek for about an hour around the area. I have no idea how these guides navigate around. They always seemed to know where they were going even as he was hacking his way though the forest with a machete. Supposedly they often see a while bunch of wildlife in the night time but we didnt see any.
The next day it was onto more hiking. We came to a spot where we dropped out bags and climbed down the side of a hill to this really nice waterfall
Most of the trees in this forest seemed to be growing like this one.
Our guide said he had a cold so he chopped a piece of bamboo, threw some peppers and sugar in it, and then mixed it up and ate it with some other fruit that he found.
Along the way to the next spot we found a snake in a tree.
at another waterfall where we stopped to swim I discovered when I got out of the water that butterflies really liked my stinky socks and a bunch of them were flying around my shoes
Right before we got out of the forest we came across this beehive.
Overall I loved the trek and its probably the only one that I will do in Cambodia so I'm glad it was in such a cool place.
Beautiful butterfly. good camouflage with your shoe - perhaps that is why it was attracted... not that your stinky shoes are not attractive all on their own!
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