We had no plans and no place to stay. But it was no big deal because we expected to spend the day on a 5-6 hour car ride to Ser Monorom and then we'd just find a place and relax for the evening. Things don't always go as planned, and so were pleasantly surprised when we arrived in a sweet 3 hours at Pich Kiri, a guesthouse our driver knew. It was an amazingly budget-friendly place at $12 a night, and Scott scoped out the room and approved it. Maybe I was a little spoiled by our gorgeous resort living, but my stomach leapt into my throat when I saw that the shower was just a hose-with-a-shower-head in the middle of the room and the room was already occupied by what seemed like an entire colony of ants. I immediately started scratching phantom bug bites all over my legs and arms and made some Significant Facial Expressions at Scott. Scott, however, was feeling completely chipper and ready to seize the day, so while I faded into a dark, dark corner of my own mind, he went out and booked us an impromptu tour for the afternoon. He thought he'd booked us a car tour, so we were a tiny bit surprised when two scooters showed up. But, whatever, I was starting to feel like a good sport again, and after seeing how prevalent motorbikes are in this country, I thought it would add to the experience to putter around on one for a short while.
Well, on whole hour or so later, we arrived at our first stop, after all kinds of red dusty roads and more than a few moments of "WeeeeeeeeeWAITHOLYCRAPISTHISSAFETHISDOESNOTSEEMSAFE," but besides the numb butt and the horrifying knowledge that all the red dirt embedded in my skin would later require a long, long visit to the-bathroom-we-do-not-speak-of, it was actually quite a lot of fun! We stopped at a gorgeous waterfall, walked around a coffee plantation, saw what they call a sea of forest, rode around some beautiful mountains and explored the countryside. It was gorgeous. And seeing it in the open air of a motorbike, your body naturally sitting deep down into every sharp turn, was exhilarating.
We returned in the early evening. I took the world's most efficient shower, and we headed out to the Green House restaurant, which is an interesting place that looks like a patio and a jungle combined and clearly caters to foreign tourists looking for low-budget tours and volunteer opportunities. We had already booked our excursion for the next day, but we still enjoyed talking to the restaurant owner about the area and tour stops and hung out until we were ready to hit the hay.
December 31
You'll note that this day was December 31, and I point that out for a reason. This was the last day of 2012, and I will go on the record saying that I was not a fan of 2012. Actually, 2012 was the worst. So this was the last day of the worst year, and I was gonna ride some elephants, thankyouverymuch.
Honestly, I probably had the most comfortable night's sleep of the trip. And for those of you closely monitoring the ant story, they had almost completely disappeared overnight.
We once again jumped on the back of some motorbikes and rode out, not as far this time, to a little village consisting of a few huts and some farm animals. There were some little baby pigs running around, and a baby cow with its mom, and then four or five giant elephants just hanging out. We climbed some steps and stepped across an elephant to sit in a two-person basket on its shoulders, and off we went toward the jungle. It was not the majestic, romantic ride I was somehow imagining. You should know, if you are not sitting in the exact right position on an elephant, you are in for some pain. Every giant step rocked me dramatically into either a super hard piece of woven wood or Scott's knees. But then our mahout jumped off the elephant and told us that for the balance of the animal, it would be better if Scott climbed out of the basket and sat just behind the elephant's neck. Suddenly I was comfortable, holding on to the sides of the basket and gazing out, imagining how the height and the rhythm of the elephant's footsteps would make a king feel incredibly powerful. Meanwhile Scott spent about an hour WITH NOTHING TO HOLD ON TO, just trying to properly time it so that he could quickly wrench his torso around and grab the basket behind him whenever the Bun the elephant dipped his head down to tug on some branches. I think there was some possibility that a hospital visit could have been included in this trip.
We stopped off at this nice spot near a creek for a lunch break and to let the elephants eat and rest. It turned out to be about a two and a half hour break, so fortunately we were able to fill our time talking to a very interesting Canadian filmmaker who was there with his Cambodian girlfriend and their adorable kid. Then the elephants showed up again and walked out into the river to cool off and wash the dirt off their backs. A lot of people in our group started joining them, climbing on the elephants' backs and rinsing water off of them. After a while, standing on the rocks in the river involved a bit of a frogger game with balls of elephant dung but we fortunately came out unscathed. We jumped on an elephant's back and ours playfully kept dipping its head way down into the water and shaking. And then it made a trumpeting sound, which is a deep and surprisingly loud sound that immediately reminds you that this is a huge and powerful animal. And then it started rolling a bit until finally behind me this little boy mahout goes flying off the elephant and splashing into the water. And we all sat staring at each other for a moment, because we realized there was no one guiding our elephant. One of the men laughingly said the elephant didn't like the boy, which appeared to seem true since it stopped shaking, but it didn't change the fact that now it was up to me and Scott to get the elephant out of the water by ourselves. Now. Sitting bareback on a giant animal climbing up slippery wet rocks without the supervision of an experienced mahout is...a concern. We were laughing and enjoying ourselves, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking, I can't wait until we can talk about how fun this was in past tense, when I know we didn't fall off and hurt ourselves.
Then we had a really unpleasant discovery. Scott's wallet was missing. We concluded it must have been knocked out of his back pocket while bouncing around on the elephant's head. Our mahout didn't speak English but we managed to let him know what happened and he kindly took Scott on foot back through the paths we came in on to look for it. No luck. When we got back to the guesthouse, the owner, Madame Deu, was there and by the time my scooter pulled in she had already been filled in on the story. She was so sweet she immediately could see I was distraught about the whole thing and wrapped me in such a maternal hug and sent two coconuts to our room. The next morning she had prepared some tea and donuts for us for breakfast and had pictures taken with us before hugging us goodbye and sending us on our way to our next stop, Banlung.
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