Saen Monorom is a small town very close to the Vietnamese border in Western Cambodia. It took us about 5 hours to get there from Phnom Penh. There aren't any taxis or tuktuks out there so we managed to find two guys willing to take us on the back of their scooters the 2km out of town to our hostel. This 'scooter taxi' cost around $1 each.

Our hostel was a set of small lodges (basically garden sheds) set in a large field with cows and horses roaming around outside. We had our own outside bathroom and a bed with a mosquito net. Luckily we didn't need air conditioning as the town is 800m above sea level so a few degrees cooler, especially at night. The only negative was it was a good half an hour walk into town and the hostel restaurant had decided to only serve western food so we mainly ate western food while we were there.

The manager of the hostel was hilarious, he would just say 'yes and okay' and we soon realised he often had no idea what we were talking about. The restaurant was also a bit weird as there constantly seemed to be about 15 Cambodian girls waitressing there but we were two of about 6 guests so they would all stand around watching you eat.

Although we had some communication issues with our hostel manager we managed to arrange a one day elephant riding tour for the next day. This involved us sitting on the back of the hostel staff motorbikes and being driven to a village in the middle of nowhere, they were stopped by the police halfway there for not wearing helmets which was another scary police experience but luckily (and incredibly stupidly) scooter passengers in Cambodia don't have to wear a helmet and they didn't seem interested in taking our money so we hung back quietly in the shadows. Interesting to think we are afraid of the police in Asia where as in England I feel comforted by their presence!!

Once we arrived at the village our chauffeurs left us there with the mahouts family to wait for the mahout and the elephant. The only problem was no one spoke English and no one explained to us what was happening so after 20 minutes of sitting on a wooden shelf in a straw hut with a very pregnant woman smoking a joint and some kids running around I was starting to wonder if perhaps we should have bought our mobile phones with us :-)! Just as we were starting to wonder if we would sit there all day, and my ability to flash polite smiles was wearing, the elephant came walking towards the house and it was a spectacular sight.

We were introduced to the mahout and the elephant (can't remember names) and I was then helped up onto the elephants neck where I rode for about an hour before switching with Esben. This was incredible, you could see fantastic lush jungle views and the elephant moved very slowly so it wasn't scary. What I didn't know about elephants is they eat constantly so it took us all day to go a few kilometres to a river and back because the elephant wanted to eat everything. It was great to see the mahout clearly looked after the elephant well and we never rushed it to stop eating and move on.

At lunch we stopped near the mahouts family farming hut and he asked if we would like to go and meet his cousin and his family who were staying there so of course we said yes and left the elephant eating to go and visit the farm. It was clear that the whole family lived in extreme poverty. Their house was a small round hut made out of elephant grass. Inside there was a small fire in the middle puffing with smoke and as the house didn't seem to have a chimney we were immediately surround by a light grey fog. On each side of the hut the family had their sleeping areas. When we arrived a 10 year old girl was cooking while another person was rolled up in a blanket and her father was sitting making straw figures to give to their gods. The little girl was quite dirty but when sitting in front of the fire, with her untidy hair l, a natural beauty radiated from her.

It all seemed a little awkward at first, just sitting there without being able to talk to them, but then our guide started to tell us about the family. They survived on farming dry rice, hunting in the jungle using a crossbow and making baskets to sell at the market. The whole situation made it seem like we had stepped 500 years back in time. We left them with an appreciation of our own luck to have been born in Europe but at the same time with a sensation of admiration for these hard working people surviving on practically nothing.
After scrabbling around the jungle for 5 minutes and following some footprints we found our elephant again. We walked 20 minutes down to the river. Here we quickly changed into our swimming costumes and jumped into the river with the elephant. He seemed to enjoy the cold water as much as us, after all it was by then 2 in the afternoon and blisteringly hot in the jungle.

After having been cooled down properly we started the walk back to the village. It was rather steep up hill but we went slowly to let the elephant eat whenever his heart desired it, which again seemed to be every 10 meters.

At the village we said our sad goodbyes and were taken back to our nature hotel by our two scooter captains, who suddenly were wearing helmets (it seems policing works even in Cambodia - but only so we don't get fired of course so naturally we saw them later flying around on their scooters on town without helmets like 90% of the people there).

That evening we were much more tired than we expected and were slightly regretting having booked the full day protected forest trek the next day so we made sure we had an early night for our 6.30am meet.

In the morning we joined two other British women (stereotypical 50 something spinster type ladies, mim and nad spring to mind but with trousers) for our protected forest trek with a guide and a local forest man who was to ensure we didn't get lost in the jungle! We were driven to the village on the edge of the protected forest and shown some of the traditional wooden houses on stilts and a garage where they were making a table from wood cut from the forest....! This was interesting and we started to question just how protected the forest actually was. Our guide explained in a rather convoluted way that village locals were allowed to cut wood down for their own houses but not to sell, unfortunately illegal logging is extremely common and during our hike we passed two logging sites and heard chainsaws in the distance.

We trekked through the jungle all day in search of gibbons and other monkeys and unfortunately only managed to see a glimpse of them from miles away. We had both seen so many monkeys by this point in our trip that we didn't feel it was worth the 9 hour walk to see what we saw. I did however enjoy looking at the snakes, frogs, spiders, lizard eggs and absolutely beautiful towering trees which everyone else seemed to be less interested in.

Lunch was an interesting experience as the local forest guide cooked us some eggplant soup in bamboo. First he made a small fire, which was an achievement in itself given the damp humid environment of the forest! Next he cut a thick piece of bamboo, ensured the end was sealed and then filled it with miniature eggplants, pork meat and water. He then boiled it on the fire for a few minutes before smashing up the contents with a thinner piece of bamboo before serving up the delicious soup. It tasted salty and sweet even though he hadn't put any seasoning in it.

We were both very relieved when we finally made it back to the car in the late afternoon. Our fitness from trekking in South America had obviously worn off a bit and we had sore feet!

Monday was the start of our Elephant valley adventure which started with a drive down a bumpy dirt track to a small village on the outskirts of town where the project is run. There were 11 people on both days we were there, some were volunteering and others just to see the elephants. Esben had treated me to one full day elephant watching and one day half day volunteering and half day hanging out with the elephants.

First up was an introductory talk from Jack who is British and one of the founders of the Elephant Valley Project. He has lived in Cambodia for 9 years during which time he met his Swiss wife and has a 1 year old with her. He was nice enough but super arrogant which we found grated on us after a while, plus he didn't stop talking rubbish :-)! He told us about the project and the elephants. Some of the elephants have been bought outright by the project and others are on loan or the project has managed to persuade the elephant owners to let them rehabilitate it because it has serious illness or injury. The project appears to do some great work with the local community as well as elephants including funding healthcare that otherwise would be paid for by illegal logging they also fund schools and provide rice to families so the children can go to school and not have to go out and find money/food.

There are 9 elephants at the project in total all of which are female and have been involved in the construction or tourist industry and have been treated badly. Males are captured less frequently as they are stronger and harder to catch in the wild.

The first morning we went down to the river to see 4 of the elephants having their morning wash. This involved them rolling around in the river a bit and then getting out and spraying mud all over themselves! They were lovely to watch, such large graceful animals. You could see scars on some of them and rib cages which had apparently been compressed from carrying large loads.

After a sleepy two hour lunch break the group was split up and Esben and I were put in the elephants washing team :-)!!! This meant we had to go down to the 'washing station' which consisted of a concrete floor with some hoses, brooms and buckets. Soon after we arrived our first customer turned up. She was a beautiful elephant but sadly was one of the worst treated elephants at the project and looked very emaciated on her face and ribs as well as having scars and premature ageing. She seemed to enjoy having Esben and I chuck water all over her and give her a good scrub down, unfortunately I seemed to get more water and mud on me than her. Our second elephant was healthy looking and just as fun to clean.

After the elephant washing we went up to the top of a large hill where there was an amazing view of the jungle and we watched the elephants graze for the afternoon while chatting to some of the volunteers and locals.

That evening we stayed at a guest house that the project put us in and it was grim. Dirty, dark and beyond basic but it had a powerful, hot shower which pretty much made up for everything since I hadn't had a powerful shower for about a week and I was covered in mud!!

The next day we were meant to start with volunteering and I was ready to put in the hard work. As it turned out volunteering involved cutting down a few small banana trees while Jack went on and on about how much better at farming he was than everyone in Cambodia and then taking said trees to a pile near where we could feed them to elephants in the afternoon. The whole thing took about an hour and then we just lazed around for the rest of the morning! I could say we were grateful for the lack of work but to be honest it just felt like a bit of a waste of time.

The afternoon was fantastic. We had a different guide, Chris, who took us to see the only two elephants we hadn't yet met. We watched them bath in the river and then watched as they ate the trees we had cut earlier. One of the elephants has an eating disorder and it is very difficult to get her to eat so they try and vary her diet as much as possible, hence the banana trees, but we couldn't give one elephant the treat and not the other so they both had some. Next we laughed as the mahouts try desperately not to let them into the paddy field right next door to where we were standing. 'Easy' was determined to get to the rice and we heard some pretty ferocious growling before she was told to calm down by 'Ruby'. Ruby did this by putting her trunk in Easy's mouth. She was then happy to munch on bamboo instead. Apparently the week before two elephants had destroyed a rice paddy and the project had had to replace all the rice lost, pay the farmer the value of the rice and give him a pig and a jar of rice wine for good measure!

I think the elephant valley project is doing some fantastic work and it was great to see elephants who had previously been treated so badly now have the proper treatment they deserve. Unfortunately they can never be returned to the jungle as they won't be able to look after themselves and the risk of ivory poaching is too high. Also some are only on loan so may return to work however the project aim to educate the owners as much as possible as the elephants are a more valuable source of income if kept healthy.

That night we stayed in Grimsville again as it was super cheap and then it was time to make our way down South to the coast and paradise!!

Alice
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