Chi Phat

During our last blog updating spree (in Koh Kong) we somehow did not do Chi Phat. This leaves the impression that we basically crossed a river to the town of Chi Phat and immediately turned around and biked back to the highway in order for Meg to vomit in the sink of the sauna hot, urine smelling, bathroom on a bus to Koh Kong. This was not the case, in fact we spent two pleasant days in the Community Based Ecotourism site of Chi Phat.

As Meg alluded to in the post about leaving Phnom Penh it was a little bit of an adventure to get across the river into our destination town. The ferry into town was a little raft with a long tail engine on it that all the locals would pile on to with their scooters and chickens and vegetables. The day we arrived we were surprised to see that it appeared that a twelve year old boy and his younger sister were operating the ferry. We were even more surprised when it turned out that they were. Anyway, they were quiet proficient at it. The little girl got us all loaded onto the boat and using a 1x4 (which appeared to be a broken piece of the raft deck) levered us into the water (the raft had stuck to the bottom with all the extra weight). The little boy whipped out a cord and pull started the motor. Everything went quiet smoothly until we got about 1/3rd of the way across the river, that's when the motor stopped. It then failed to run despite about twenty attempts by the boy to get it going again. I had expected that at some point one of the adults would have jumped in to help, but the consensus seemed to be that at twelve years the kid was probably the best man to resolve the problem. Not knowing much about long tail motors myself, and not even knowing how to say "motor" in Khmer I had to agree.

At this point we were adrift in the water and the boats which passed didn't seem inclined to help. Fortunately the little girl wasn't just useful for taking off and landing, she pulled out that little 1x4 and started paddling us to shore. I would be hard pressed to think of anything more ridiculous than this little girl trying to paddle us to shore with a 1x4. At the time I was thinking that maybe I should kneel down on the edge of the platform and start trying to help out by using one hand to paddle. It would have effectively doubled our horsepower I think. Unfortunately I had to keep holding my bike up.

After a bit the little boy developed a method of pull starting the motor and using the two seconds of time before it stalled to push us closer to shore. After a few minutes of this we were across. Then came the offloading. Safety not being of utmost importance, a foot wide plank was set loosely from the ferry half way up a hill on the shore. Scooters would gun in it off the ferry in order to get across the plank and then up the little bit of hill on the far side. This became an issue after a bit because, for one the ferry had slowly drifted away and the plank was falling off the deck and two, the scooters that were last were precariously balancing large baskets on either side of the back seat. This would have been okay while traveling quickly down the road, but posed a problem when having to travel a narrow unsteady path from a standstill. Anyway, everyone got across with only one man having to jump in the water to prevent falling in with his scooter. Meg and I walked our bikes across the plank. For this twenty minutes of entertainment we paid 75 cents.

Ferrying into Chi Phat. I know we already put this picture up, but we only have one shot of us ferrying. We do have a video as well, but it is not clear to us how put them up here.

Anyway on the way into Chi Phat we came across a couple really new and nice looking guest houses and things looked to be going well. We were excited about the adventures we would have in this fair village.

Then we came to the headquarters of the Chi Phat experience. We were ordered into a set of chairs and interrogated on what kind of accommodations we would like (home stay, guesthouse, or eco-resort) and what kinds of activities we would like to do (hiking, boating, moutain biking... over night or not). Having seen the guest houses on the way into town with their comforting looking window screens (every 8th word/phrase out of Meg's mouth is Malaria, every 23rd is Dengue Fever, and every 50th is Japanese Encephalitis) we chose that option. Not having any idea what we wanted to do and not having any good information on which to base an opinion, we decided to do nothing. At hearing that we were to do nothing our interrogator appeared quite put out and we were summarily excused.

A nice fellow was waiting to guide us to our accommodation which was assigned (fairly we think) by the all controlling interrogator. We noted immediately that we were not going in the direction of the guest houses we had observed earlier. We noted after a little while that we were very far from the core of the town. Finally, we noted that the windows on our guest house did not have screens, which was fine, since our room had a very "open" concept in which we did not have a ceiling and the the walls did not go all the way to the roof. This was all a little off putting. Then we realized that we had no running water.

After a few minutes of raging things turned out just fine. Showering with a bucket was pretty easy and sleeping with a mosquito net is fun as it is like having a force field surrounding you (a force field that is quiet easily blown away by the fan used to cool us it turns out).

As we had missed our chance to do an organized trip (trips must be booked by 5pm the previous day), the next day we decided to rent a double kayak. It was a really pleasant experience being on the water, in control of our own destination and the banks of the river were quite pretty. We didn't make it all that far as we there was a bit of a head wind and both of us got achy pretty quick from using trapezius muscles that had seen no action since Quetico.

Meghan "Feeling Free" (good product placement, eh?) while we explored a secret tree cave in the river.

Me "Feeling Uncomfortable" in my ill fitting life jacket. Also, whenever I am not in a kayak I forget how damned uncomfortable I am while in a kayak.

After speaking with a few people who had headed out on activities during the day we learned a few things. The overnight trips covered the same ground that the day trips did, they were just broken up (less hiking each day) and cost more. Also, there were no bats at the bat cave. Based on this we decided that we would do a 22km out and back hike up to the "Silver Meadow".

The day of the hike went really well. It felt great to get out and stretch our legs out for a few hours. Like most "trecking" we have experienced over here so far, the walk was actually through trails that locals used to get around (by scooter) so it definitely did not have that off road feel. It was still hilly and long enough that by the end of the day we were really tired. The walk had us pass through a eucalyptus plantation, some grazing land, a bit of jungle (we saw a red squirrel looking thing (they are everywhere!) and heard some monkeys "woop-wooping" in the distance) and of course the silver meadows. The meadows were quite pleasant. Though we did not see any of the animals that might have been hanging out there according to the hike description, we did see one of those bug eating plants which was pretty cool. As I have to come to appreciate "alpine meadows" back home, I also like the "silver meadow" over here. Our guide was a really nice kid, though with his limited english and our lack of any Khmer we mainly learned that he was going to Phnom Penh that night to go visit his new niece or nephew and that he was not married. The breakfast, lunch and dinner supplied with the hike were also really, really good.

The guide and I having a water break. It turns out he was packing around about 10 lbs of water for us all day. We were also packing our own water. We ended up drinking the water he brought for us to though, so it worked out.

Meg chilling out after a hard day of hiking. She appears to be thinking about how bad ass she must look with her cut off shirt.

Meg wandering through the "Silver Meadow"

That pretty much sums up our trip to Chi Phat. We ended up writing the organization a little e-mail to suggest a few things that might be improved upon in the village, especially since everyone we talked to had similar complaints to us. At the same time though we really enjoyed our few days there.

Of course something we ate there made us sick.