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Mekong
Off the Beaten Path; My Cambodia Travel Log
Dekila is the WWF US leader for the Greater Mekong Program. The Greater Mekong Program consists of three Global 200 ecoregions; the Mekong river, the Lower Mekong Dry Forests and the Greater Annamites and covers six countries; China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. This ecoregion complex is one of WWF US's priorities due to the incredible endemic biodiversity found there; whether it is the Mekong Giant Catfish, the largest freshwater fish in the world, or the Douc Langur, possibly the most charismatic primate in the world.
Dekila is from Sikkim, a tiny northeastern state in India the size of Rhode Island which is squished between Nepal and Bhutan. Like every other person from the Himalayas, she is convinced that her homeland is the original Shangrila. Her family is Bhutia, of Tibetan origin and she speaks Sikkimese, the local language, as well as Tibetan, Hindi and Nepali fluently. She worked in the WWF Eastern Himalayas Program for five years prior to working on the Greater Mekong. Her areas of expertise include strategic conservation planning, community based conservation and sustainable livelihoods. Among her most prized skills is the ability to eat anything remotely edible.
Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 14 and 15 | Last Day
It's 5 am. I get up blearily and we roll out with our cameras, trying to capture what fine examples of biodiversity are available in the market today. Fish markets are one of my must see spots everywhere I go in the Mekong region. It is incredible what you can find; creatures that you thought existed only in your 6th grade nightmares, every type of fish available in the region, as well as prawns, snails, frogs, turtles, snakes, all squirming about in basins and buckets or marinated, as you prefer.On our return, we are reunited with Teak with whom I will be traveling with towards Mondulkiri. There is much strapping and tightening of our supplies in the back - it
will be pretty rough going in parts. The drive can be summed up in one word - dusty. By the time we tie the tarp on the back of the truck, the dust has already settled into the folds. Our truck is flanked by large Honda motorbikes, the preferred means of traveling for many of our staff. These guys strap on their field gear and intrepidly ride all over the country. It takes a stomach of steel to ride on these roads, for we spend as much time off the road then on to avoid the gargantuan holes.Driving through Cambodia is both idyllic and unsettling. On one hand, the country is a lush unending line of rice paddies and coconut or palm trees, presenting a sense of security and wellbeing. However, the towns often have a tired feel to them and it is common to see people standing around aimlessly, without the usual activity that one sees in a busy town. Like any poor country, the contrast between the rich and poor is infinite and impossible to ignore.
People in Cambodia are broken into rough groups of ethnic Khmer, the Khmer Loeu, the Chinese and the Vietnamese. While the ethnic Khmer are found mostly in central and southeastern Cambodia, the Khmer Loeu live mostly in the northeast and southwest areas of Mondulkiri, Rotanakiri and Kratie. The term, "Khmer Loeu" itself is not authentic. The government coined the word; literally "highland Khmer"; to create a joint identity for the highland tribal groups and the lowland ethnic Khmer that they have historically rebelled against.We get to Sen Monorom, the last major town before we head into the Srepok Wildneress Area, late afternoon. Much of the money here comes from gold mining or logging and it feels like a rough and tumble frontier town in the middle of nowhere. And yet, just about everyone has a cell phone in their hand as they obsessively turn them off and on - From here on, all telecommunication access is unreliable. Seated in one of the restaurants in town, we can hear Khmer, English, French, various hill tribe languages and Vietnamese all around us. The radio is blaring a combination of traditional Khmer music and karaoke Madonna. This is the face of globalization.
Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 14 and 15 | Last Day
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