Mar 03 - Last day in the jungle. After the frog hunters had gone to bed, we actually had a peaceful night, with the flowing river lulling us to sleep. We rolled out of our hammocks, and sat by the fire - it had been pretty chilly last night. Breakfast was noodle soup again; I think Srau had finally decided the meat was fully depreciated, so we just made them with the seasoning that came in the packet. As we were about to start, the thatch collecters came over again - they'd obviously had a good night's hunting and had walked up to share the bounty. Srau scooped a couple of steaming legs (toes and all) out of the pot, and plonked them down in my plate. Mmmmmm... froggy noodle soup. Actually, they were pretty good if you could get past the visuals. Cheryl managed to gracefully decline the offerings, although I'm not sure how.

We obviously weren't in a rush today (later we worked out we were only about 7km from the village). We wrapped everything up for the last time, and had a good spinal stretch - really looking forward to a flat bed tonight, as we both felt slightly hammock-shaped. Srau packed everything up and we set off across the river again. We climbed through some pretty heavy jungle, having to cut a lot of vegetation out of the way. We'd made our way into a valley of sorts, and the paths out were fairly steep.

Srau paused at a fallen log, and chopped out a couple of borer-beetles. He left the adults and the maggots behind, but kept the ones that had got to the crawling larval stage. Clearly these were the most delicious! He also passed me a small lump of brownish material. I sniffed it a bit suspiciously, but it didn't smell too bad, and so we ate it. This was the borer equivalent of honey, and while not quite as nice as the real deal, was actually quite good. Either he'd sussed out our taste in food, or the larvae were really haute jungle cusine, though, because we didn't get offered any.

We walked through the jungle for a couple of hours. It's actually hard to describe the forest itself, which is why I haven't written much about it, but the thing that keeps coming home is just the variety of life. I remember Attenborough saying that there's more recorded species of tree in one park in Singapore (only 80ha) than in the whole of North America. It was the same here; everywhere you turned, there was something new to see. Gigantic trees towering overhead, wrapped in the embrace of a parasitic vine. Orchids growing from trunks in particular areas, with no discernable pattern. Flowers in every shape and colour. Also insects, evolved in a huge variety of camoflauge, to try and keep up with the plant life. There were birds in all the trees - orioles, flycatchers, starlings, parrots, and a whole whack of species that I didn't even recognise. Something that looked like an Eagle Owl burst out of the bushes, as we came into a clearing, and looking up into the sky, there were kites or maybe buzzards floating on the currents.

I know I'm banging on about it, but it was still a shock to then suddenly come to a burnt-out spot. The atmosphere would go from cool, leafy and moist to arid, hot and dusty; all in the space of a few steps. And all the variety of things going on would just stop - no birds, no plants, and hardly any insects. The jungle seems so old, and permanent, when you're walking in it, but it's hard to see that it will be here at all in a few years' time.

As we wound our way back to the village, we came to more and more cleared & populated land. Some of it was being replanted with cashews. These trees give great leafy cover, and the plantations have a fantastic smell, but there just isn't the same sense of plenty that you get back in the jungle. A lot of it was just lying bare, though. We came across some temporary structures, set up by some of the other guest houses, and we knew we were getting close to civilisation (if you can apply that term to Sen Monorom!). We stopped for a final lunch, crossed a fourth river, and set off up one last (and very steep!) hill.

I'd read a comment in the Lonely Planet a couple of weeks before. It said something about rice, to the effect that it's "the engine that drives people, and you'll see your guides start to wilt if they don't have any, even if they've eaten all sorts of other things." We definitely saw that happening today. Srau would have to stop for a breather every 2-300 metres, and was looking quite pale and shattered by the time we got to the top. At the top of the hill, we looked back over the jungle. From a distance, it looks as if quite a bit of it is still there, and that made us feel a bit better. We took a couple of photos, and then took the gently winding path down to the village, which was a walk of another 2-3km.

Tree was waiting for us, snoozing in the back of his tuk-tuk. After we said goodbye to Srau, he leaped up and put our bags in, and then it was back to Phnom Meas for a shower and an ice-cold beer, which tasted unbelievably good. We talked to him a bit about the state of the area we were trekking in, as it wasn't really what we'd expected, although on reflection we had a pretty good time. He also seemed a bit shocked and upset about the state of the land, but it's difficult to see what to do about it. He blamed it a bit on the local people - when Cheryl was talking about deforrestation as a problem, he said "Yes. Of course, it's a problem for me, and for you. But for these Pnong people, it's not a problem. They just cut, so they can keep the land to get money."

Speaking of problems, there appeared to be a one with our bike trip to Ratanakiri tomorrow. Tree couldn't get hold of the driver. We were too tired to worry about it for the moment, though, and so we wolfed down some dinner (chicken, for a change!), and climbed into bed; enjoying in the strange sensation of being horizontal for a good five seconds before drifting off into unconsciousness for a good ten hours.