Ratanakiri

This post was meant to follow in swift succession of the Mondulkiri blog however, as ever, life got in the way so it's taken far longer than usual...

After Mondulkiri (for me) it was off to another northern province, Ratanakiri.

We went to visit Anna (blog here), another volunteer who joined VSO Cambodia the same time as us. She's in Ratanakiri (RTK) working as a Community Development Adviser. We teamed up with two other volunteers who started the same time as us to have a mini reunion in a very lovely part of Cambodge. Travel in Cambodia mostly goes through Phnom Penh so the two other vols, Andy (blog here) and Ellen (blog here but it's in Dutch so you may find it kinda difficult to understand), who live in the north-west of the country had a 6-10 hour journey down to Phnom Penh and then another 6-8 hour journey up to Ratanakiri in the north-east. Anyway...

I got to the capital, Banlung, a few days before the others so I headed out with Anna on a trip to visit a school director. The school was about 45 minutes away by moto and my transport for the day was kindly provided by Anna's volunteer assistant (a volunteer's Khmer sidekick who translates not just the language but everything that goes on that we don't understand) Narin.

After the school we stopped for a ubiquitous iced coffee with condensed milk - delicious, although I can barely manage half as the caffeine gives me heart palpitations - and Narin asked what we were going to do now. We both presumed we'd be heading back to Banlung but then Narin suggested that we go and visit another crater lake...

One of the main attractions in Banlung is the beautiful crater lake, Yeak Lom. Anna and I had gone there the night I arrived for a quick cool-down dip and I was definitely happy to see another one. 45 minutes later we arrived here:

Narin and Anna beside the lake

Sadly with no swimmers we couldn't go in - and, as the top pic shows, the deck was also broken so we couldn't even sit and dangle our feet in. We did however have a swarm of bees (they must have been killer bees the noise they were making) fly over the trees above our heads. Anna and I were both for bolting but Narin very calmly just told us to stay still. He explained we were fine in the trees as they wouldn't fly down to us - but it's a problem when people are working in the field. Scary!

On the journey we passed kilometres upon kilometres of rubber plantations. While I know they're not good for the environment, and many people have lost their homes because land as been cleared to make way for them, there's still something that appeals to me about the long straight lines of them with their little cups to catch the rubber and their winding lines where the bark has been cut.

That afternoon we went to a football match, part of a big sports weekend that Anna's work, the Education Office, was hosting. Neither of us are particular footie fans but it was another great chance to experience something new.

As this is going to turn into another epic blog I'm going to do this half of the trip, before the others arrived and then do another when the rest of the gang got here. Here are some more photos...

Narin popped by the next morning, got some jackfruit out the tree and cut it all up for us!

He then was passing later in the afternoon after picking up a chicken coop.
I guess he knew we'd get a kick out of it being on the back of a moto so he dropped in again.

and the only picture I took of Anna's beautiful house - complete with
coconut, jackfruit, durian, mango, avocado etc trees in the garden

Just as I took this picture the minibus arrived to drop off Gordon, Ellen and Andy - but that's for part two...