Mar 07-08 - Sightly unable to believe that we'd teed ourselves up for another 4-day hike, we checked out of Tribal Lodge, and got ready to head up to the park headquarters. There was a minor panic when the mangeress Kim called the Ratanak hotel to ask them to pick up the bike and return my passport, and they said they didn't know anything about it! Anyway, we managed to race up there and find the guy who'd hired it to us. My passport was still in his pocket, thank goodness! He dropped us off at the headquarters, where we were meeting our guide, Sayang.

The Swiss guy who'd suggested the hike hadn't turned up. Cheryl cursed him loudly - as we'd probably be winging our way to Laos if not for his comments at the lake - and we set off for the market to buy some food. Our guide asked us what we'd like to take, and we suggested noodles, remembering that these had been pretty good on the last hike. "No way," he said, "Noodles are very bad. I was a ranger for seven years. I ate a lot of noodles, and now my stomach doesn't work. We get rice instead." So we just followed him around as he rocketed from stall to stall. The main Ban Lung market is quite a sight, it's a riot of color, and had almost every variety of food you could imagine. Sayang seemed a bit forgetful - first running to one stall, then to another. He ended up leaving half the food he'd bought behind, but we came away with enough to feed us (and probably a few more people) for four days. After that, it was back onto motos for a trip up to the river at Taveng, which is just on the border of the park's buffer zone.

We stopped at Taveng for lunch, and bumped into Ricky, the helicopter pilot that we'd met the evening before. He'd drawn the short straw, and while the others were up in the Squirell, carrying out the survey, he was looking after the base relay station in the town. They'd had to set up at the local police station, which was the only place that ran it's own generator during the day. Ricky had only been in Cambodia about ten days, and was blown away by the antics of the policemen. "You won't believe it," he said. "They're all there in uniform, but sitting around drinking beer and playing cards. Since 10 'o'clock in the morning! They've got a monkey on a chain, and the one guy keeps wrestling with it on the floor, while the others all stand around laughing. It's like something out of a book." He shook his head. "We've also sent someone out to set up a second base station in the jungle. He took a policeman with him, and the others were all lauging this morning, because he left his bullets behind!" We chatted for about an hour, while Sayang was getting the boat organised, then said our goodbyes and walked down to the river.

Sayang had hired a boat - a real mixture of old and new technology, this longtail had been dug out of a single tree-trunk, and had an 8hp Honda motor on the back, attached to a flexible steering rudder with a propellor on the end. There was about 5cm clearance between the top of the sides and the water - we were warned not to shuffle around too much. We loaded in ourselves and the kit, and then set off North for the National Park itself. The Stung Treng is at low water this time of year, so there were a few rapids to ford as we headed upstream. At one particular set the water was very low, so we walked the kit upstream while Sayang guided the boat up through the rapids like a salmon. Still not sure how he managed it! We were still in the park's buffer zone, so there were occasional villages on either side, but the trip was actually quite beautiful - with green foliage and towering trees lining the riverbanks on both sides for most of the way.

We stopped off for the first night at a local Pnau village, to pick up a guide. They'd built a huge lodge in middle of the village for visitors, where we hung up our hammocks. Sayang rustled up dinner (to be honest, he was not a great cook), and while he was doing that, we had a quick swim in the river to wash off the dust of the day. We ate dinner as the sun set and the local kids raced around the village. The had long bamboo poles, with plastic bottles on the end, which they pushed around the village paths in a sort of mini grand prix, with much laughing and shouting. When dusk arrived, they took a break - grabbed some smouldering twigs fromo the fire, which they plugged into the bottles as headlights, and set off again. We got to bed early, and had a peaceful-ish sleep, although when Cheryl went out to the loo in the middle of the night, she was rousted by an inquisitive piglet!

Early the next day, we set of in the boat with our guide, Lat, to the park proper. The boundary was only about 15 minutes upstream, where we beached the boat, and covered the engine with leaves. There were a couple of abandoned shacks, which apparently used to be hunting lodges for the miliatary before the park's rules where applied to them, as well, a few years ago. The rangers seem pretty passionate about their jobs, which was good to see, and after chatting a bit, we set off from the base station into the jungle.

The National Park is quite beautiful. It's a mix of primary and secondary growth, as bits of it were logged extensively 20 years ago by the then-governor of Ratanakiri. He fled to Thailand, and was sentenced to 28 years in prison, in absentia. A huge amount of regrowth has occurred, and there are many parts which are completely pristine. We walked for a couple of hours through bamboo, banyan trees and up trickling river gullies, and got to a waterfall, where we stopped for lunch. There wasn't much flow, as we're at the peak of the dry season, but there was a beautiful pool at the bottom where we swam, and got nibbled by inquisitive fish. There were hundreds of butterflies around, and they must have been desparate for salt, because several decended on us and started licking us! They were so focussed, that you couldn't even shake them off. We ate lunch, marginally harassed by bees. As I got up from lunch, one of the little b*****s stung me on the foot - it had crawled inside the lip of my shoe without me noticing!

After lunch, we climed up a serious hill. Actually, it was probably only about 400m high, but it felt serious with a heavy backpack on. Sayang had insisted we bring a couple of tent flysheets in case it rained (needless to say, not even close!). We hiked up a winding path, part track, part streambed, that criscrossed the Ho Chi Minh trail. Heaps of shrapnel and bomb craters were still scattered all over the area, but the regrowing jungle was definitely winning the battle.

We walked for another couple of hours - it was great to also have a guide who could point out the wide variety of plant and bird life, and the local guide told us (with translation) about the food and medicinal uses of many of the plants on the way. We forded a couple of small streams, and then came to a river where we made camp for the night. For some reason, our guides decided to camp on the opposite site of the river to us, quite a distance away. Maybe they were hunkering down for some Brokeback Mountain action, or maybe they couldn't bear our snoring ... I don't know. We waded downstream to some pools to swim and get cleaned up, then came back for some more of Sayang's terrible cooking, and an early night. We'd walked about 15km into the jungle, and it was absolutely alive with sounds the whole night. Birds and bats sang, insects chirruped, and the muntjack deer barked like dogs (they really did!). One of the deer crashed through our camp at about midnight - we just saw the back of it as I turned on my torch. We didn't hear any tiger, but could imagine them, and we felt like snacks, suspended in our hammocks in the dark!