I am about to embark on my 3rd hardcore trekking expedition in Virachey National Park (VNP), up in Northeastern Cambodia, and I want to suggest this trek to people who might be looking for an offbeat locale where one can get pretty deep into wilderness. VNP is spread across Ratanakiri and Stung Treng provinces, though almost all treks are arranged out of the town of Ban Lung , provincial capital of Ratanakiri. Tigers, leopards, clouded leopards, elephants, gibbons, douc langurs, banteng, and possibly even Javan rhino still inhabit the deep interior of the park, which is where I am headed in 10 days time.
And finally, a link to a new blog I have created in support of a book that I am working on about the current state of the environment (very bad) in the region, and the status of the park (“game over”, basically): Called Away by a Mountain Spirit: Journeys to the Green Corridor. The book will probably be available on Amazon.com in March.
Anyway, Northeast Cambodia,for the time being, is still an enchanting place, but that is changing very fast. Due to decades of war and instability, the indigenous most of the people of the region still practice animism (elsewhere in Southeast Asia many have been converted to Christianity). The clock is ticking for the ecological and cultural integrity of the region, and I cannot recommend a visit enough. I
Apparently Virachey NP was never mined, and neither was Ratanakiri province. One thing we will have to look out for (if we can look out for them) on the upcoming trip is unexploded ordinance. The US dumped quite a bit on that mountain range, and my friend actually found a piece of old twisted metal that could very well have been a bomb casing. Hard to imagine planes flying overhead and dropping bombs on that place. In fact, in one of the villages in the buffer zone of the park, I ate out of a metal bowl which they later informed me was made from an unexploded bomb casing. We are actually going to trek right up the Lao border next week -4 days one way from the nearest village- camping out a few extra nights at the foot of what is considered a spirit mountain, and then heading back. Should be 10 days/11 nights.
Unfortunately, the scenery you see in the video might not be there for that much longer, as the Cambodian government is essentially in sell-off mode, liquidating everything that can seemingly as fast as they can. When they have thoroughly trashed the country they can just move to Singapore or Bangkok, or somewhere.
Just got back from my 3rd trip to Virachey and thought I’d add some videos to this thread (still working on uploading all my pics in to Wordpress to get a proper blog report ready):
Frog fights for its life in the jaws of a snake (shot right below my bungalow at Tree Top Ecolodge in Ban Lung, Ratanakiri):
Morning gibbon wake-up call (shot from my hammock, I just sat back and enjoyed this for about 15 minutes before I turned on the camera. There is a lull for about 7 seconds in the beginning. Give the apes a chance to come back):
Waterfalls and Gibbon Calls (on the O-Pong River in Virachey NP; previous vid also inside the park):
I have completed writing a book about my 3 treks in Northeast Cambodia. Rather than just stick the Amazon.com link here, I made a new blog post in which the photos (some of which I have not posted before) are rendered in black and white (to give it a different feel) and, more importantly, where the entire Introduction to the book is provided for free. Here it is (and the Amazon link -in case anyone is interested after reading the Intro- can be found in the post): travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia … 97417.html