7/5 Phnom Penh to Chi Phat

7/5/2013: In the morning, I figured out how I was going to get to Myanmar (departing July 10 for Yangon from Phnom Penh), how I was getting out of Myanmar (flight from Mandalay to Bangkok July 20) and then booked my bus ticket to Chi Phat in the Cardamom Mountains. 

Puppy at the guesthouse

Chi Phat (pronounced “chee pat”) is a remote town in southwestern Cambodia and hosts one of the offices of the Wildlife Alliance, an NGO working with communities to preserve their environment by stopping destructive activities and replacing them with ecotours. Chi Phat is the nearest town to the Cardamom Mountains Protected Forest, which is apparently the largest swath of unspoiled rainforest in Southeast Asia, and it is home to around 15 different endangered species, including Asian elephants, tigers, pileated gibbons, and clouded leopards. Chi Phat had been a hub for illegal logging and wildlife trade, but Wildlife Alliance had apparently started to get some traction and was having a positive effect on both the community and the forest.

The bus ride from Chi Phat took longer than expected, and I was dropped off at Andoung Touk at around 6pm. From there, I had to take a little "remork moto" ride and then a 40 minute motorbike taxi to Chi Phat, farther inland and only accessible by a muddy, sketchy dirt road. The motorbike ride cost me only $6. The driver went pretty fast despite the slippery muddy conditions and I was holding on tight the entire way. The ride coincided with the sunset, which was beautiful in the green rural countryside. Lots of farms and just natural forest, and all the people smiled and waved as we passed. 

The driver dropped me off at the “ferry” to get me across the river, which was actually just two canoes with some wooden slats secured on top of them to form sort of a catamaran. It cost 25 cents to get across. Just a 5 minute walk down the main street and I was at the visitor center for the Wildlife Alliance Chi Phat office. The town was extremely small – the guide says around 500 families – and it is very poor and undeveloped. The houses are all simple wood houses, some of them falling apart, and there is no electricity during part of the day. The person at the visitor center set me up at a “guesthouse” – just an extra room at one of the houses in town, and the lady picked me up on her motorbike and drove me down the street to her place where I dropped off my bags. The room was up a steep staircase/ladder, and was definitely not sealed off from the outside with plenty of bugs crawling and flying around. It was a soft bed, though, and only $5/night, so it was fine.

I returned to the visitor center for dinner and chatted with some Latvian girls for a bit. I also shopped around in the book of activities offered through the Wildlife Alliance and soon realized that I hadn’t really brought enough money and there was certainly no ATM anywhere nearby. In fact, it would be a 3 hour bus ride to Koh Kong to hit the nearest ATM. I had enough for a 2 day/1 night “trek” in the jungle, but I’d have to book it the next day and wait another day to start that. 

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130705PPToChiPhat?authuser=0&feat=directlink