Living In a Village with Ten Elephants: Mondulkiri, Cambodia

 Our family has always had the motto, Work Hard Play Hard , so when the annual Pchum Ben holiday came up this year we looked for something exciting. That’s when a friend offered the use of his traditional Khmer home for the holiday. His home is in a remote area of Cambodia, that until the last few years hasn’t had paved road access.  Tricia and I neither one had been to this part of the country, so experiencing a new place and new culture sounded exciting.

We knew Mondulkiri was supposed to have beautiful forests and be a more mountainous area (which means cooler temperatures) than the rest of Cambodia, but when our friend said 10 elephants lived in the village where his home was, we decided this definitely had to be the next Hester adventure.

Our adventure started with a 7-hour drive on a mostly paved, but very bumpy road from Phnom Penh. We decided to take an SUV, so I drove and we took our chances. We have gotten confident enough in our knowledge of the Khmer language to venture out on our own! As we got close to Sen Monorom, the capital of Mondulkiri we began to realize we were definitely in a part of the country that was very different from everything we had seen in other parts of Cambodia.

  

A homemade hydroelectric power plant

The terrain was hilly and green. The landscape changed from tropical forest to pine forest and then back again. The temperature was several degrees cooler as well. The last hour and a half was road that was only a few years old and in great condition. I got to enjoy the scenery and the drive!

When we arrived in the provincial capital of Sen Monorom it was a small Cambodian town. We were happy to be in a place where life moved at a slower pace. The village where we were staying was 7 kilometers outside of the capital city. Putang village is a traditional Bunong village. The Bunong are a tribal people who historically have been the primary inhabitants of this part of Cambodia. While the new road has brought an influx of Khmer businesspeople to the province many of the villages are still primarily Bunong. They have their own spoken language and culture. Our host, Vanny, was Bunong, but was also fluent in both Khmer and English.

We enjoyed a great holiday on a hilltop home overlooking the countryside. We would wake up each cool morning to the sound of ringing cowbells as the herds of cattle and water buffalo grazed just outside our window. Other than the occasional rooster, that was the only sound we heard. It was amazingly peaceful and restful.

On our first morning I looked out my window to see an elephant and his “mahout” (trainer) on their way to the forest and fields to work. The Bunong still use elephants to forage for food and wood in the forest, or to work the rice fields hidden away in the valleys.

Unfortunately there are no more wild elephants in the area due to deforestation and hunting for ivory. Elephants can live up to 45 years in captivity and up to 70 years in the wild, so the elephants in the village had been tamed years ago before the deforestation and drastic reduction of the number of elephants in the area. This was a sad side to the trip realizing that the Asian elephant population is disappearing along with the Bunong way of life.

Many tourists ride the elephants on day-long treks which are very laborious for the elephants. We decided this was not something we wanted to be a part of. Instead we bought a few snoots of bananas from a villager and let the boys feed one of the elephants. His mahout then insisted that the boys take a little ride for a few minutes, which they were happy to get to do.

Tricia and I at the top of a small waterfall

Tricia and the boys looking at a hillside banana plot

Part of our time in the village consisted of trekking through the hills and forest where we found a beautiful waterfall and enjoyed idyllic views of rice fields and banana plantations on the hillsides. We had quite an adventure when our ninja, Reece, attacked and killed a bamboo shoot. Little did he know there was a wasp nest inside the bamboo shoot and that the shoot containing the wasp nest would fall over our trail, blocking our way home. Maybe I’ll share more on our 2 waterfall stories in another post!

The rest of our village stay consisted of learning more about the village culture. We were able to buy a handmade basket that villagers wear on their back and use to carry food and wood they forage in the forest. We learned how to make traditional jar wine (rice wine in a large ceramic pot), how to make a local form of tobacco and enjoyed the fresh fruits available from the local trees. 

Kyler enjoying swinging in the vines

It was also great to be able to live in a Khmer village home and experience day to day village life. We did have running water in the bathroom thanks to a rainwater storage system! It was all a welcome retreat from Phnom Penh and a great opportunity to experience a new part of Cambodia. I’ll share more on our two waterfall adventures in another post. I’m thinking of calling it Ninjas, wasps, waterfalls and scantily clad men!