Cambodia and the Cardamom Mountains: A Rain-Soaked Adventure
July 2014: As part of a two-week trip that included Hang Son Doong in Vietnam and Thailand, I returned to Cambodia after a decade, eager to see its changes and explore the Cardamom Mountains—Southeast Asia’s largest primary rainforest—before illegal logging and poaching took their toll.
My timing was terrible. I arrived at the peak of monsoon season, set to join park rangers on an overnight patrol in relentless downpours. Phnom Penh had modernized with high-rises and casinos, yet the rural countryside remained unchanged. The journey west was grueling—flooded roads, makeshift ferries, and trucks overloaded with logs, a grim reminder of deforestation.
The rangers, on the frontlines against illegal logging, welcomed me to their station with concerned looks. Trails were nearly impassable, but the patrol had to proceed. Dressed in borrowed fatigues, I followed them into the jungle. The initial trek was manageable—humid, dense, and alive with distant gibbon calls. But as night fell, the storm escalated. Waist-deep in floodwaters, gripping vines to stay upright, I endured one of my most extreme jungle experiences.
We stumbled upon a poacher’s camp—traps still set. The rangers dismantled them with quiet frustration. Despite their efforts, the battle for the Cardamoms is an uphill one. By the time we returned, exhausted and soaked, I had gained a deep respect for their relentless fight to protect this disappearing wilderness.
My trip wasn’t what I envisioned—it was harsher, wetter, and more challenging. But it was also unforgettable. The Cardamoms are vanishing, and without urgent action, this last great rainforest may soon be lost. Would I do it again? Absolutely. But next time, I’d check the weather forecast first.
Location of Cardamom Mountains
Into the Wild: Patrolling the Cardamom Mountains with Cambodian Rangers
Hidden deep in the heart of Cambodia, the Cardamom Mountains remain one of the last great wildernesses of Southeast Asia—a sanctuary for endangered wildlife like tigers, elephants, gibbons, and the elusive Siamese crocodile. While much of the region’s forests have been lost to logging and poaching, the Cardamoms have remained intact, partly due to their remote, mountainous geography and partly due to their tragic history as the Khmer Rouge’s last stronghold. Even today, landmine fields from that era continue to threaten local villagers, a haunting legacy of war.
On paper, the Cardamom Mountains are a protected area, but in reality, deforestation and illegal hunting persist. However, efforts to combat these threats are growing through eco-tourism, education, and anti-poaching patrols. I wanted to do more than just pass through—I wanted to contribute. So, I arranged to join the first known overnight ranger patrol into the forest, an initiative supported by Wildlife Alliance, an organization that works with the Cambodian government to protect the park. My contribution included covering the salaries and food for the rangers during the patrol, an eco-tourism model we hoped to promote further.
Journey to the Cardamoms
My adventure began in Phnom Penh, flying in from Hanoi before heading into the wild. While Bangkok has modernized and gentrified beyond recognition over the years, I was almost relieved to see that Phnom Penh still retained its raw, chaotic energy—just as I remembered from my first visit in 2000. It still felt like a frontier city, where the past lingers just beneath the surface.
From Phnom Penh, I set off for the Cardamom Mountains, knowing that the days ahead would be intense. What I didn’t expect was how immersive and sobering the experience would be—pulling traps from the jungle, navigating dense, untamed forest, and witnessing firsthand the ongoing battle to save one of Southeast Asia’s last wild frontiers.
Phnom Penh Market
Phnom Penh: North Korean Restaurants & Khmer Rouge Genocide Sites
Unlike Bangkok, which has modernized beyond recognition, Phnom Penh still retains its Southeast Asian charm—a city of contrasts where tradition lingers, untouched by towering skyscrapers. Walking through its streets, I was relieved to find the same bustling energy I remembered from my first visit in 2000.
I wandered through traditional markets, their narrow alleyways packed with vendors selling everything from tropical fruit to motorbike parts. As night fell, I found myself in one of the city’s raucous Go-Go bars, a world of neon lights and thumping music. I had downloaded a traditional Cambodian rock song from City of Ghosts, one of my favorite movies set in Cambodia, and played it through my phone. The reaction was immediate—the girls loved it, dancing on the bar tops to the music, their energy infectious.
Phnom Penh is a city where contrasts are everywhere. I ate at cheap street food stalls, savoring fragrant Cambodian dishes, and stayed in a budget hotel where I “splurged” on a $40 room. But one of the most surreal experiences of the night was dining at a North Korean restaurant—one of the infamous state-run establishments where young North Korean women, essentially enslaved by the regime, served overpriced food and performed on stage. I sat through renditions of karaoke classics, including My Heart Will Go On from Titanic, knowing that every dollar spent here was funneled back to the DPRK. Later, I learned that the restaurant had struggled to keep staff because many of the workers had defected—a silent act of defiance against one of the world’s most repressive regimes.
Despite the changes, Phnom Penh was still the same city I remembered—gritty, chaotic, and unapologetically raw. But this time, I decided to visit a place I had deliberately avoided on my first trip—one of the Khmer Rouge genocide sites. It wasn’t something I looked forward to, but one of my main motivations for travel is to understand history—both the beautiful and the brutal. And in Cambodia, there is no escaping the shadow of its past.
Tower of skulls of the victims murdered by Khmer Rouge
Phnom Penh’s Dark Past: The Khmer Rouge & The Killing Fields
In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, plunged Cambodia into one of history’s deadliest genocides. Their radical communist vision sought to erase the educated class and return the country to agrarian life. Anyone deemed an intellectual—teachers, doctors, even those wearing glasses—was targeted. Nearly two million people, a quarter of the population, perished through execution, forced labor, and starvation before the regime collapsed in 1979 with Vietnam’s invasion.
Determined to confront this history, I hired a motorbike taxi to visit Choeung Ek, the Killing Fields. The site was eerily quiet, its mass graves marked by sunken earth and a towering stupa filled with skulls, many showing brutal execution wounds. The Killing Tree, where Khmer Rouge soldiers smashed infants to death, stood as a grim reminder of the regime’s cruelty.
Walking among the graves, I felt the weight of Cambodia’s suffering. The past lingers in Phnom Penh, but so does resilience. The country has not forgotten, but it refuses to be defined by its darkest days.
Killing tree where babies of parents that were exterminated were killed by being swung against the tree. The belief was that the babies, if allowed to grow up, would want to avenge their parents someday.
From Killing Fields to the Wild: A Journey to the Cardamom Mountains
After the heavy experience of visiting Choeung Ek, my motorbike taxi driver took me to a shooting range, a jarring contrast to the morning’s somber history lesson. Here, tourists could pay to fire AK-47s, machine guns, even an RPG. Jokingly, I asked if I could shoot a cow. Without hesitation, the range operator replied, “Of course, we can have one delivered.” I quickly declined.
The next morning, I squeezed into a shared van packed with Cambodians, their belongings stacked high and live chickens dangling from the tailgate. The journey was long and chaotic, with rain-soaked, slippery roads, multiple van transfers, and eventually a motorbike taxi ferry ride across a swollen river.
By nightfall, I reached Chi Phat, a remote village and the gateway to the Cardamom Mountains. I checked into a rustic guesthouse, where the real adventure—patrolling the jungle with rangers—was about to begin.
The shared taxi I took to get to the village where the Cardamom National Park head quarters
Chi Phat: Gateway to the Cardamom Mountains
The rustic village of Chi Phat, perched along a river with bamboo houses on stilts and small, dimly lit bars, felt like a step back in time. The locals were friendly, curious about the rare foreigner passing through. The Cardamom Mountains were still off the backpacker radar, but despite my aversion to mass tourism, I knew that eco-tourism might be the only hope for preserving the region’s forests and wildlife.
At the Cardamom National Park HQ, I met with a Wildlife Alliance director and five rangers who would accompany me on patrol. All were ex-poachers from local villages, now protecting the very forests they once hunted in. As I sat sipping coffee, a wild rhesus macaque suddenly leapt into the kitchen, snatching food before being chased out with a broomstick. The staff explained that he had been rescued as a baby, rehabilitated, and released—only to become an incorrigible food thief.
Since the rangers spoke no English, I was given a Khmer-to-English translation pamphlet with emergency phrases, including gems like, “Help, I have been bitten by a cobra” and “I am sick, take me back to the village.” Our mission was clear: patrol the forest for poachers, dismantle traps, and possibly encounter wild elephants. There would be no trails, only dense jungle, and we would sleep in hammocks under the relentless downpour of the monsoon season.
That night, I settled into a simple guesthouse with a ceiling fan and a cold beer from a nearby bar. Just outside my room, I spotted the biggest gecko I had ever seen—nearly a foot long. It was mid-battle with another equally massive gecko, their colorful bodies twisting in combat. Curious, I reached out to grab one. Big mistake. The gecko bit my hand hard, proving that even the smallest creatures in the jungle are not to be underestimated.
The next morning, the real adventure would begin.
Huge gecko attacking my gloved hand
Monkey raiding the kitchen
Villagers
Into the Jungle: Patrolling the Cardamoms
At dawn, the rangers and I set off on foot into the jungle, leaving behind the village of Chi Phat and stepping into the untamed wilderness of the Cardamom Mountains. The rain had not let up, and the air was thick with the scent of damp earth and jungle rot.
Our first challenge was crossing a small river, where a makeshift ferry awaited us. The ferry was operated by a father and his young son, the boy completely naked as he expertly controlled the propeller with practiced ease. It was a simple but effective operation, a glimpse into the resourcefulness of life in this remote part of Cambodia.
With the river behind us, we disappeared into the dense, rain-soaked jungle, where no trails existed, only thick undergrowth, hidden dangers, and the unknown ahead.
Naked boy powering our ferry
Into the Jungle: A Question of Enforcement
We began our trek along a narrow jungle trail, the rain-soaked ground slick beneath our boots. Not long into the hike, we encountered two intoxicated villagers on a motorbike, swaying slightly as they rode through the forest. They had been collecting wild honey, their hands sticky with the golden syrup, and were drinking homemade hooch, which they eagerly offered me. I took a sip—harsh, fiery, and likely potent enough to strip paint.
The men also carried several sacks, their contents unknown. The rangers, however, didn’t check them, letting the villagers pass without question. It left me wondering—how much actual enforcement was happening? The rangers had no guns, yet elephant poachers are always heavily armed. In the face of real danger, would they be able to stop them?
It was a stark reminder that protecting the Cardamoms was an uphill battle—one waged with good intentions, but perhaps without the tools needed to win.
Villagers collecting honey in the forest
Deep into the Jungle
Leaving the trail behind, we plunged into the dense, untamed jungle, where no paths existed—only mud, tangled roots, and relentless rain. The air was thick, the ground slippery, and each step was slow and deliberate.
The further we hiked, the quieter the forest grew, save for the steady drumming of rain on the canopy. The rangers moved instinctively, navigating the wild terrain with ease. I followed, stepping deeper into a world few outsiders ever witness.
Rangers leading the way
Crossing a stream
Mer bushwacking through the jungle
Survival in the Jungle
We trudged through the rain-soaked jungle, pushing through thick vines and thorny undergrowth. Leeches clung to me constantly—at first, I pulled them off, but eventually, I just surrendered to them and the wet. I kept an eye out for snakes, but even they seemed to be avoiding the misery of the monsoon.
There was another danger, too—washed-away landmines and unexploded ordnance from the war. The rangers warned me that this occasionally happens, and I made a mental note that stepping on a landmine was not on my to-do list.
We crossed knee-high streams, and somehow the rangers managed to spot hidden poacher traps, small snares meant to catch deer. As they disabled each one, I felt a small victory in this ongoing battle for the forest.
Then, a lightning storm rolled in. Bolts struck nearby trees, shredding them apart as the forest exploded with the deafening roar of thunder. There was nowhere to shelter but under more trees. It was terrifying and awe-inspiring all at once. Despite the misery, I felt completely in my element.
Jungle Camp
As evening fell, the rangers signaled it was time to make camp. Looking around, I saw nothing but thick jungle. But within ten minutes, their machetes had cleared a campsite, and our hammocks were strung between trees with tarps overhead—home sweet home.
A campfire flickered to life, and we cooked rice and fish, the warmth offering a brief reprieve from the damp chill. Climbing into my dry hammock, wrapped in dry clothes and a mosquito net, I stared into the fire, listening to the rain.
That night, exhaustion took over, and I drifted into deep sleep, lost in a haze of strange, vivid jungle dreams.
Night camp
Me in my hammock at Night camp
One Last Patrol & A River into the Wild
I spent one more day patrolling the jungle with the rangers, dismantling more traps and pushing through the relentless rain. But while I was heading back to the village, their mission wasn’t over—they would remain in the forest for another week, continuing their fight against poachers in one of Southeast Asia’s last wild frontiers.
Back in Chi Phat, I spent one last night in the village before setting off again the next morning. This time, I hired a small motorboat to travel upriver into the Cardamom Mountains, hoping to spot wildlife along the way.
The jungle was alive. A group of gibbons swung effortlessly through the canopy, and macaque monkeys watched curiously from the trees. It was a perfect wildlife sighting—except I didn’t have my SLR camera with its good lens, which had met its untimely demise in a Vietnamese cave.
Even without the camera, the moment felt special. The Cardamoms were still wild, still full of life—but for how much longer?
Boat ride to look for gibbons
The Journey Home: From Jungle to First-Class
By afternoon, I began the long journey back to civilization. A motorbike taxi took me out of Chi Phat, bouncing over muddy roads, before I switched to a public bus bound for Bangkok. The transition was jarring—from deep jungle patrols to the chaos of city traffic in just a matter of hours.
From Bangkok, I managed to secure a standby first-class ticket on Delta Airlines, a stroke of luck for the final leg of my journey. Even more special—it was my last flight on a Boeing 747, the legendary “Queen of the Skies.”
As I settled into the luxury of first-class comfort, sipping a drink at 35,000 feet, I couldn’t help but reflect on the contrast of the past few days—from leeches, monsoon rains, and jungle hammocks to the quiet hum of a high-altitude cabin.
The Cardamom Mountains had been an adventure in its rawest form. The fight to protect them is far from over, but for a brief moment, I had been part of it.