Wat's new in Cambodia?

via Khmer NZ

Angkor and the main sights aside, Cambodia is largely unexplored by travellers but the jungle of the north-east makes a great stop en route to Laos or Vietnam

The Guardian, Saturday 21 August 2010

Take me to river … bamboo bridge over the Mekong, Cambodia. Photograph: Alamy

A s I kayaked down the Mekong river, a couple of humps slunk out of the water about 10 metres ahead. Then a couple more to the left, and more to the right, before I finally realised that I was at the centre of a pod of Irrawaddy river dolphins, one of the rarest species on the planet.

Away from the boutique hotels of the Angkor Wat service town of Siem Reap and the cappuccinos and NGO crowd of the capital Phnom Penh, travelling in Cambodia has a distinct edge – and is full of wonderful surprises. Having left the ravages of civil war behind, huge tracts of it are still just opening up to travellers. What awaits them is a nation still mostly untrammelled by tourists, where, in the remoter parts, it's still quite possible to grasp that elusive feeling of discovery.

Bereft of proper roads connecting it to the outside world, Cambodia's north-east province of Ratanakiri is the epitome of an emerging frontier, with vast swathes of rugged forested terrain, waterfalls, pristine lakes and indigenous peoples. It's also starting to be used as a staging post for travellers moving south from Laos or into Vietnam.

Like any of the best places to visit, half the fun is in getting to Ratanakiri, and hundreds of miles of half-built roads, dirt tracks and some very weird food lay ahead of me on my journey from Phnom Penh. With no flights and only the dodgiest bus companies running routes there, the quickest and most comfortable way to reach it was by taxi.

The 280-mile taxi journey to my first stop, in the far north-eastern town of Stung Treng cost just £50 – less than a cab from Heathrow into central London, and also provided me with the chance to see the remarkable backwaters of the country.

An hour or so north of Phnom Penh, we passed the famous spider sellers of Skone. My driver couldn't resist a "You like? You like?" as a street vendor stuck several kebabed arachnids under my nose. We then headed to Kampong Cham with its impressive Mekong-spanning bridge; the river here is magnificent, brooding, massive. Until Cambodia's post-civil war reconstruction began a few years ago, the Mekong also provided the only form of transport north.

Roads have now replaced the river, though some are only half-built. A dusty, bumpy dirt track snakes north to rejoin the Mekong where we drove alongside the river's endless flood plains, passing huge communities of houses, mosques, Buddhist temples and schools, all built on stilts. After a quick noodle stop, we hit the home stretch on a super-smooth, recently completed, Chinese-built road.

At the point where the Sekong river splits off from the Mekong stands the unkempt town of Stung Treng, where I found the Golden River hotel, which proudly boasts the only elevator in the whole of north-east Cambodia.

It was at the Mekong, just north of Stung Treng, that I set out to see the Irrawaddy river dolphins, some of the last remaining on the planet. My guide for the day was Alex Aziz, a tour operator from north London who works with local people to create community-based tourism projects. "There are probably only a couple of hundred healthy adult dolphins left," said Alex as we paddled out into the Mekong, "but we're almost guaranteed to see some here. The villagers protect them and the dolphins have got smart and stay near." Right on cue, they surfaced near our boats.

Bewitched, we paddled down the Mekong and through sunken forests before being picked up a few miles down river.

The next morning we continued the bumpy, dusty drive to Ratanakiri, near the Vietnamese border. This region is the most ethnically diverse community in Cambodia – up to nine different ethnic groups are present. Ratanakiri was heavily bombed by the US during the Vietnam war as it formed part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. These days Ratanakiri's main settlement, Banlung, is a thriving market town that is making the most not only of a burgeoning tourism industry but also the trading route it finds itself on.

The Yaklom Hill Lodge, opened by a Thai owner, Sompong Sritatera, in 2002, was my home for the night. Yaklom's bungalows are buried in a thick coppice of jungle just outside Banlung. Electricity runs off solar panels, the water isn't heated, but it was refreshingly cool, and the wooden chalets simple and comfortable. Basic, but you don't come here for superlative luxury – the attraction is the private jungle – 10 hectares of verdant foliage and colourful birds and flowers.

One of Banlung's biggest draws is Yaklom Lake – a volcanic crater full of water. "It's a perfect spot for a swim," said Sompong, "but first we have to make the five-mile trek there."

Glad for the help of the guides as we hiked up a steep slippery slope to views across Ratanakiri's rolling landscape, I asked Rin, our guide from the Tamphun ethnic group, what the words were for hello and thank you in his language. "We don't have words for this," he said. "We just offer a big smile."

After stopping for quick drink at the home of a local family, where we witnessed several young women hand-weaving colourful Tamphun cloth, Rin filled me in with more details of how his people live. "The Tamphun eat snake, dog, insect, monkey, mouse, squirrel and frogs. We believe all have spirits but the strongest spirit is in the wild pig," he said. "When we catch the pig we share with the whole village so the spirit is not just taken by one family."

The hike brought us out beside a clear stretch of water, surrounded by giant trees and swooping birds. We walked to the other side where there were fewer people, and several wooden jetties jutting out into the water (used for sunbathing platforms), a cultural centre and several small noodle stalls. Yaklom Lake is protected by several local Tamphun villages, a great example of community-based tourism. But of course it was the long running jump into the gorgeously refreshing waters that sealed the deal.

"You like? You like?" said Rin, as I pulled myself from the waters and reclined on the jetty. At the end of the day my big wide grin just said it all.

• Andrew Spooner is the author of Footprint's Cambodia, and Southeast Asia travel guides (footprintbooks.com)