There are numerous forums advising travellers about current road conditions between Sen Monorom and Ban Lung, and for very good reason. This region was once part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a series of oxcart paths skirting the Vietnam border. On a map, it’s quite easy to think that there will be a road leading from one to the other. In reality, though, the path is rough going and expensive – at $60 per person for a seven or eight hour moto ride, this was one adventure we were going to have to miss out on in favour of the more economical $15pp bus ride that goes via Kratie.
The bus ride from Sen Monorom to Kratie was a memorable one. The minibuses here are, we think, 11-passenger vans that have been re-engineered to hold 14 people over 5 rows (including the front with the driver). But 4 rows plus two front seats in Cambodia means you should be able to fit at least 18. And that we did. Plus two more, and another three hanging out off the back, where all of the luggage was stowed using a complicated series of rope knots. Why waste valuable space inside? Surprisingly, it wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, despite the fact that we didn’t splurge on an extra ticket to give us more room this time, and we reached Kratie without incident and the locals were still smiling at us.
The one person they weren’t smiling at, though, was the Uruguayan woman who had laid claim to the front seat for the whole journey (5hrs this time, not the record-breaking 4hr ride we had on the way out). The driver was seriously angry, having put her on the phone to his English-speaking boss on a few occasions in an attempt to get someone to explain that she had to share/move, only to have her claim a knee problem meant that she had to sit in the front (blatant lie as far as we knew – she’d been out hiking in Sen Monorom!). As a result, the first bench had seven adults and children packed into it and there were three guys sitting on luggage outside the trunk, hanging onto the ropes, instead of being able to reshuffle and distribute the bodies more efficiently in the space available inside the vehicle. Selfishness seems so out of place in a country like this. We think the driver may have gotten a bit of revenge, though, because we didn’t see her after we got out to change buses in Kratie and we thought that she was also changing buses there somewhere. Given that the minibus was headed for Phnom Penh and she was headed for Laos (opposite direction), that could make for a rather large detour for her…
The rest of the journey passed without incident and we were met at the Ban Lung bus station by a driver from Treetop Eco Lodge who loaded us into his tuk tuk (ah! Guess the trail hadn’t ended after all…) and deposited us at the lodge. We were shown to a BEAUTIFUL bungalow with a deck (complete with lounging chairs and a hammock) that faced out into a field in the valley. Hot water, high roof, screened windows (no mosquito net), polished wooden floor and walls… Luxury! And all for $15. We couldn’t believe our eyes. The lodge has a beautiful deck restaurant that looks out over the valley and we immediately felt relaxed there. The menu was uninspired and didn’t seem to have many local specialties, so we did something very uncharacteristic of me – we sold out and ordered a margherita pizza. As Rich has learned in the past, selling out is NEVER worth it; our pizza arrived and, as well as being overpriced, was under-sized and, oddly, slightly sweet. Oh well.
While Ban Lung is much larger – or at least more sprawling – than Sen Monorom, there isn’t a whole lot to keep you in this friendly, sleepy town. The real draw cards are scattered through the surrounding countryside.
Ban Lung is known for its waterfalls and its 700,000 year old crater lake, so during our stay we went to check out Kachanh and Ka Tieng Falls (despite the fact that that’s not where we’d been aiming to end up – gotta love hand-drawn maps!) and spent two afternoons laughing with locals at the lake. We passed tiny little villages where the skin of the people was the same shade as the red soil, making Ban Lung’s Khmer nickname “red earth” seem that much more accurate. I practised my “soos’dais” (hellos) and “naek sok sabais” (how are yous), knowing that this would be the last place I’d get to put them to use.
We spent our final night savouring an incredible Khmer curry at A’Dam restaurant, which made up for the nearly inedible curries we suffered through the night before at Everest, a restaurant that does Indian and Khmer food, but the Khmer curry looks suspiciously like a nameless Indian curry.
With a place like Treetrop to sleep, I could have easily spent a week in Ban Lung, exploring in the mornings, and whiling away the hottest hours of the day submerged in the cooling depths of the lake. But, this morning came and it was time to move on, so we bid the town a quick but fond farewell and boarded the minibus. Now we’re sweating it out in Stung Treng while we wait to hear when our transfer to the Laos border will leave.
Grateful for: cool water on hot afternoons
