**Please don't be confused! We did indeed move to Bhutan in May and we are currently traveling in Nepal. Nonetheless, we still have the goal of documenting the final months of our bicycle trip around SE Asia. So please enjoy this latest blog entry, a mere half of a year after the fact! :) PS--If you are reading this in an automated email, don't forget to check our actual website for lots of photos and video!**
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On the first day of 2016, we left the beach bum's paradise of Koh Ta Kiev and cycled from Otres Beach to Sihanoukville. Failing to find anything charming about the place on first impression, we opted for a quick lunch and grocery shop, before continuing on. In an effort to stay off of the main roads, Matt plotted out one of his famous short cuts that turn out to be long cuts. The road turned to dirt and passed by farmland and the occasional homestead. It wasn't long before it narrowed to a sandy track crowded with dry grasses taller than us. We felt like we were riding though the savannah of Africa minus any exciting megafauna. We wouldn't have minded pushing our overloaded bikes through sand pits, or unloading and hauling our them across deep canyons of erosion, if it were not for the knowledge that a perfectly rideable road paralleled this one just a few kilometers away. It's a lot easier to be enthusiastic about such challenges when you know there are not more logical options to get to where you want to go.

With our slow progress along the African detour, we didn't make it to Chi Phat that day, but instead overnighted in an interesting riverside town at a humble guesthouse run by a really friendly family. They were genuinely excited to have us stay there. The next day we made it up the dirt road to Chi Phat faster than we anticipated. The final step in reaching the rural village was a pedestrian and bike ferry across a mellow stretch of river, the ferry being nothing more than a floating wooden platform with a motor attached. While Chi Phat may be out of the way, it's not exactly off the beaten path of tourism, but in a good way. It is widely regarded as the most successful example of Cambodia's Community-Based Ecotourism initiative. Our first stop was the official visitor center where we arranged a homestay that was really just a small guesthouse with a Khmer customer base. Nonetheless, the owner was lovely and she had her son guide us to a great swimming hole along the river after we briefly settled in.

We spent the next couple of days hanging around the village and doing some work on the computer at the visitor center, including applications for a sea kayaking instructor position in Malaysia (which obviously we didn't get). By then, we had decided which of the many tempting options of eco-adventures we wanted to do for a surprisingly affordable price. While we normally don't do tours and prefer to explore on our own, we wanted to support the basis of the eco-tourism program that gives locals an alternative livelihood to the previously rampant illegal poaching and tree harvesting in the area. Some people claim that 95% of the community now abstains from these destructive practices because they have seen the benefits of eco-tourism. While it seems most tourists opt for multi-day guided treks in the surrounding foothills of the Cardamom Mountains, we signed up for a mountain bike day trip. Apparently we don't spend enough time riding bikes already. 

After a bit of disorganization when we showed up early the next morning--it wouldn't be Cambodia otherwise--we tested the mountain bikes and determined they were functional...enough. After pushing our bikes through a shallow spot in the river, we rode some fun single track through meadows and forest to an archeological site. We hiked up to the base of some cliffs and then climbed some makeshift ladders to peer at a row of ancient burial jars tucked away on a protected ledge. They are believed to be around 500 years old and possibly from a culture that was at odds with the Angkorian empire and retreated into the Cardamom Mountains to avoid persecution. ​

Next, our guide led us to a beautiful arc of waterfalls dropping in to a wide pool. Swimming behind the falls was the perfect way to cool down in the midday heat. The last stop was a bat cave devoid of roosting bats. While our guide didn't speak much English, he indicated that the bats were out flying around and would come back at night. I pondered the biological possibilities of diurnal bats until we returned to the visitor center. There we learned that the bats do not frequent that cave during the dry season and our guide should have taken us somewhere else. Having seen a few caves with bats before, we weren't heartbroken over the oversight and thought it was a worthwhile day overall. 

Backtracking to the main highway from Chi Phat, we began crossing the Koh Kong Conservation Corridor, tackling our first significant elevation change in Cambodia except for our sidetrip to the top of Bokor Mountain. After miles of uninterrupted jungle, we stopped in the only town of significance with the remnants of a defunct Community-Based Ecotourism program. The homestay program was still available, but without anything else drawing tourists to the town, I joked that the only people using it would be bicycle travelers. Turns out that is pretty accurate! After a nice but uneventful stay with a family growing a “mixed fruit” orchard, we crossed paths with two separate cyclists the following day counting on that town as a stopover. Later, we watched a video made by the German couple we had met at Monkey Maya and they had footage of staying at the same exact house we did!

We rolled with the hills until we reached the city of Koh Kong along the border of Thailand. It was strange to think that we had been just on the other side of that border one year ago, but decided not to continue in to Cambodia. Now here we were. We had come so far only to end up so close to where we had been. Perhaps even more ironic was settling in to Koh Kong for a few days of planning a return to Thailand in a month or so, this time meeting up with Matt’s parents in Bangkok and together hitting spots around the country that we missed before.

Leaving Koh Kong, we turned north and began heading in to the heart of the Cardamom range. While we had been skirting its fringes since Chi Phat, the route we were undertaking in that moment had been on our minds since we first looked closely at a map of Cambodia in Phnom Penh several months earlier. At that time, it was the still rainy season and it was not recommended to take the unpaved roads that turn to mud pits during daily deluges. But one occasional benefit of traveling as excruciatingly slowly as we do is that entire seasons go by before we've reached the other side of our map. Lonely Planet had deemed the roads through "the second-largest virgin rainforest on mainland southeast Asia" as "passable by Toyota Camry in the dry season", so we stocked up on food and decided to give it a go. Besides being the only option to avoid backtracking to Siem Reap, we were curious to see what we could of the area's "breathtaking beauty and astonishing biodiversity" from the seat of a bicycle. Knowing it was a sparsely populated region despite the new roads being blasted through it by Chinese hydropower companies, we were looking forward to actually doing some wild camping. At the same time, we had seen enough of Southeast Asia to know that wherever there are roads, there are people. 

The first day had both perfectly paved roads (the ones that led to a massive dam) and rough dirt tracks (the ones that did not lead to a dam). After a particularly rough incline on loose gravel where my bike slipped out from underneath me a couple of times, we called it a day at the top of the hill. We made camp underneath a tremendous power line tower, the counterpart to all of the hydro-development in the theoretically protected mountains. While we ultimately enjoyed camping in the peace and quiet...er...peace and buzzing of electricity overhead, we were first swarmed by bees, then the mosquitos came out in force while cooking and eating a pasta dinner. We retreated in to our tent as quickly as possible, despite not successfully airing out its putrid stench from not one, but two, unpleasant discoveries. When Matt set up the tent, first he found a rotting gooey dead scorpion in it, followed by a little desiccated gecko. Apparently we had carried them with us from the beach on Koh Ta Kiev. Poor guys, but man did those little things stink! Oh, and both of our air mattresses had developed valve leaks and deflated within minutes. Ah, the joys of camping!

The next day was a long one for only covering 37 miles. Steep hills made slow going on the up and down, and we made lots of breaks for photos, snacks, and filtering water whenever we found a source. One time we opted for a clear, flowing drainage ditch on the side of the traffic-free road only to observe a dude on his motorbike pull over to pee into it a few minutes after we finished purifying our supply. I suppose it was good timing, but who's to say there wasn't a different dude peeing into the ditch a few minutes before we arrived? 

Approaching the village of Osam in the dusk, we descended out of the forest and were completely distracted by the burnt skeletons of old growth trees towering above young banana plantations. New settlements lined the road. It appeared that the forest had been recently cleared to make way for agriculture, as frequently happens even in (theoretically) protected areas, but we could not fathom intentionally burning those massive trees. It was rural sprawl in the virgin land of opportunity, at the expense of the Cardamom's off-the-charts biodiversity. But what alternatives do poor Cambodians saddled with an ineffective and corrupt government realistically have? The motivation to stake your small claim only increases in the face of wholesale "leases" of national parks to resort developers and resource extraction corporations.

We reached Osam well after dark and locals kindly pointed us in the direction of a surprisingly nice guesthouse. We both loved and hated that it was filled to the brim with gorgeous furniture and intricate decorative wall carvings made of solid blocks of hardwood. In keeping with the evening's theme, a woodcarver based in Siem Reap struck up conversation with us in labored English during dinner in a restaurant where the regular patrons watched us curiously but would not make eye contact with us. We gathered that he was on a business trip to buy wood from the settlers of this fragmenting forest. 

Our spirits soared when we rode by an eco-tourism information center and guesthouse on our way out of town the next morning. After parking our bikes, we were offered a plate of delicious papaya and drinking water free of charge, but the shy and smiling staff did not speak English. We saw fliers posted about a tour to observe the endangered Siamese Crocodile and wondered if it would be worth trying to arrange something anyway. Luckily, a research biologist who was staying there returned from the field and explained that the English-speaking guide-owner was away in Koh Kong. Too bad. We pedaled on, taking a short cut on a platform bike ferry like the one in Chi Phat, this time captained by an 8-year-old. 

We stopped for a snack in a shady spot on the side of the road. Shortly thereafter, a policeman on a motorbike slowed at the sight of us and cut his engine. He dismounted. "Oh boy. Here we go," we thought. He didn't say anything. He walked to the other side of the road, turned his back, and took a piss. Once finished with his highest priority, he gave us a big grin and sat down cross-legged on the ground with us, his firearm dangling off the handlebars of his motorbike. He didn't seem to speak or understand a world of English and our Khmer was still sadly limited to a few basic phrases, but we all pretended to have a coherent conversation through hand gestures. When that lapsed, he offered us a cigarette. Once a motorbike entourage of other police passed by, he abruptly got up and zoomed off. We made another mental tick mark in the category of "Things that Would Never Happen in The States".

Next, a group of outgoing dirt bikers cut their engines to inform us that another bicycle traveler was close behind us. They relayed that he was traveling light, didn't want to spend the money to stay in a guesthouse, and looked like he could use a few more calories in his digestive system on a daily basis. So it was not much of shock when a couple of miles down the road, as we caught our breath at the top of a rise, he closed the gap. "Hello, Sven! Your reputation proceeds you." We had the usual get-to-know-you exchange of bicycle travelers, then he informed us that he would ride with us “because he was tired of riding alone,” even though he could obviously go much faster.

We were just a couple miles shy of reaching the next town when we were caught out in a downpour, the only one we had cycled in since somewhere in the middle of Vietnam. When it did not let up after arriving to a small town, even Sven decided to splurge on a $5 room. While Sven was speedy in the bike seat, we found out that we were all compatibly slow with getting going in the mornings. That is about where our similarities ended. He had been on the road more or less continually for eight years, with a little time spent in his homeland of Germany. The point of each day was not photos, or even to say hello to the people he passed by, but simply to move further along his intended route. He had stories and he was eager to share them. Perhaps a little too eager at first. Our day was a barrage of, “One time, when I was in _______ …” and the blank could be filled with any ridiculous country you can imagine. This included Pakistan, where he was escorted by military babysitters who determined exactly when, where, and how he ate and slept.

By the end of the day, our route through the Cardamoms had flattened out as we crossed valleys of meadows and farmland. While this provided views of the surrounding mountains, progress was still a bit slow on the rutted dirt road. In the early evening, we pulled over to chat with a young German couple on motorbikes. In an exciting coincidence, Sven quickly discovered that they were all from the same small town, though they did not know anyone in common. We invited Arne and Claudia to camp with us, but without a tent and gear, they were determined to push on to the next major city of Battambang. The three of us set up camp on an abandoned side road and enjoyed our last night of our Cardamom crossing. 

The next morning would be a straight flat shot on a dusty road and a busy highway in to Battambang, but not before dealing with a few surprises. We woke up to find an ant invasion of our everything--panniers, shoes, food, under the tent, and crawling all over our bikes—nothing was spared. They had even chewed small holes in Matt’s sweat-encrusted cycling shirt. While dealing with dispersing them, Matt’s back suddenly tightened and hurt him for the rest of the day. Before leaving camp, he noticed a tear in the sidewall of his tire, but I encouraged him to ride on it and see if it would hold until Battambang. It didn’t. So that foldable yet hefty spare tire we had been carrying for a year and a half actually came in handy for a roadside repair in the blazing sun. ​

While our final day was not the most inspiring, we didn’t regret taking on the challenge of this route in the least. As the natural resources of the Cardamom Mountains are increasingly targeted by both large and small-scale exploiters, change is evident at every turn in the road. As is the case around the globe, the improved and expanded road network we were relying upon for our experience is also a culprit in the accelerated pace of change. But there is still plenty left to conserve. There is undeniably great eco-tourism potential, so the question remains: what would it take for this area to become the next Chi Phat?

Upon finishing our stint volunteering for Marine Conservation Cambodia, we returned to the pleasant and funky riverside town of Kampot. First priority was we treating ourselves to several days of yummy Western meals at the plethora of ex-pat owned establishments to celebrate Christmastime. Although, in keeping with Jewish tradition, we did eat Chinese for Christmas dinner itself since most places were closed for staff holiday parties. 
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It was refreshing to be back on the bicycles after residing on a tiny island for over a month, so much so that we took an ambitious day ride to the top of Bokor Mountain on Christmas Eve. It was incredible to see the influence of elevation on nature as tropical forest featuring hornbills and gibbons gave way to foggy scrubland towards the chilly upper reaches of the oversized hill. It was strange to gaze down through breaks in the clouds to the sweaty flatlands 4,000 feet below. Even stranger still was the incongruent assortment of development capping the mountain. Originally a French Hill Station where the colonists would retreat from the lowland heat and humidity, many of the buildings later served as refuge from the enemy as Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese forces duked it out. We explored the shell of a once luxurious casino and a church that had been occupied by the opposing forces. 

Then, in stark contrast to the historical sites, we locked up our bikes in the corner of an expansive, multi-tiered, but completely empty parking lot, the likes we have not seen since leaving Suburbia USA. We wandered in to a massive casino hotel that would not look out of place in Vegas, except for the surprisingly small casino itself and the modestly dressed staff. While all of this felt oddly out-of-place for Cambodia, what really made us wonder what bizarre world we had stumbled upon was the Christmas festivities in the form of poorly executed gingerbread houses with styrofoam trimmings and Khmer employees awkwardly dressed as Santas and elves. If all of this doesn't sound so weird to you, consider that Cambodia is a poor, predominantly Buddhist country, so commercialized Christmas decorations are essentially non-existent there. 

​We weren't really sure what clientele Thansur Bokor Highland Resort was targeting, either with the Christmas gimmicks or with building the ridiculous resort in the first place. However, one thing was for sure. After "leasing" the entirety of Bokor National Park from the Cambodian government for 99 years, the Chinese-owned parent company Sokimex Group constructed what has to be the nicest and smoothest road in all of Cambodia in order to whisk guests straight to the casino's grand entrance. The national park signs have all been removed, so you would never know you were technically in a national park (unless of course you knew). Now with a full dose (overdose?) of "Christmas spirit" and the privatization of public land, we took full advantage of that pristine pavement to fly down the mountain in a fraction of the hours it took to huff our way to the top. 

Sadly, Bokor National Park is just one example of the trend of auctioning off of national parks to major developers as Cambodia's leaders seek to make the elite even richer in order to stay in power. For China in particular, Cambodia has recently become an alluring land of investment opportunities. The Thansur Bokor Highland Resort claims to be stewarding the park by providing increased enforcement personnel to patrol against illegal logging and poaching of the forest's many endangered species. On the other hand, they are depleting habitat with plans for a golf course, cable car, and water park, not to mention planting a monoculture of thousands of non-native trees to "complement the beauty" of the resort.

On Christmas Day, we celebrated with an evening boat cruise up the Praek Tuek Chhu River. We enjoyed the perspective of watching the sun set behind Bokor Mountain since we had just cycled up there the day before. However, the best part was seeing synchronized fire flies for the first time once it was fully dark. The insects tended to rest on vegetation instead of flying around, so large patches of trees and shrubs were covered with coordinated blinking. Appropriately, they really looked like twinkling Christmas lights!

The next day, we packed up and said goodbye to Kampot. Since it had been a few days since we had seen the ocean, we aimed for Ream Beach on the border of Ream National Park. The last few miles of riding were slow going on a rocky sandy track in the dark, but that only made our destination of Monkey Maya Hostel feel that much more remote and special. Fortunately, the dorm was full, as were the well-above-our-budget bungalows, so the owners were amenable to having us pitch our tent next to the beachside volleyball court. At dinner they introduced us to another cycling couple from Germany who had quite an adventure arriving to Monkey Maya earlier that morning. They had followed a road cutting through the national park, only to have it worsen and eventually disappear as it approached the coast. Once it was dark, they ended up sleeping on a random beach without camping gear or food while their reserved bungalow at Monkey Maya awaited them. In the morning, they pushed their bikes along the rocky coastline only to discover they had slept only 800 meters away from their goal!  

Very smartly, Monkey Maya offers a free beer to anyone who collects a rice sack of garbage off of the beach. Consequently, this was easily the cleanest beach we have seen our journey. Of course, when duty calls to drink free beer, we can be counted on. So we wiled away the day by picking the micro-trash out of the beautiful white sand that others skip over in an effort to fill their bags quickly, and dipped in the calm water when we got too sweaty. The isolation of the place induced relaxation, but that gave us space to contemplate our unstructured future, which led to a heated "discussion" over our hard-earned free beer with a stunning sunset backdrop. Matt commented, "Only we can find a way to make such a beautiful place so depressing." Nonetheless, we were grateful to have visited this newly "discovered" beach. We saw evidence that it is only a matter of time until other developments come in, and chances are high that they won't be as sensitivity-designed or responsibly-operated as Monkey Maya.

Things were easier in the morning as we became refocused on our short term plan of cycling to Otres Beach. The main area of "Otres 1" had a Wild West meets the beach feel to it with an eclectic range of establishments lining a rutted, bumpy, red dirt road. We got what we needed--lunch and info on boats to Koh Ta Kiev--and got out, retreating to more chill and inexpensive "Otres Village" set back from the beach. Although we didn't know it at the time, and neither did the place itself, Otres 1 qualified for "before it's gone" status. It may already be gone as I write this as government officials abruptly ordered the beachfront establishments to move off of the beach. Beaches are public property after all, unless of course you have deep pockets and know the right people. While it may be a seemingly arbitrary and ultimately discriminatory enforcement of the law, I don't see it as any great loss of an amazing place, although your average backpacker of Southeast Asia is certain to be heartbroken. However, given the choice, I would take a backpacker haven with laid-back independent businesses any day over another "soulless mega-resort," which is widely speculated to be the motivation of the sudden eviction notices.

The next morning we took a boat out to Koh Ta Kiev, one of the few islands in the Sihanoukville area not (currently) slated for exclusive luxury resort ruination. The boat dropped us off at our intended camping spot at The Last Point which we quickly concluded was no longer our intention. People had raved about this island and insisted that we go there, but our first impression was a non-existent beach with a surfline filled with litter and torn up sea grass. We knew we could do better and the hungover staff didn't mind in the least pointing out a trail through the forest to the other side of the island. The next spot of Coral Beach was buzzing and definitely the hip place to be on the island. We balked at the $25 rate for an otherwise enticing stilted bungalow and they were firm on the no camping policy. We had a similar experience at the next one down the beach called Ten103. We were almost ready to settle for an uninspiring but cheap shack, though at the most authentically Khmer establishment thus far--KTK Bungalows. Luckily, my stubborn thoroughness kicked in despite my exhaustion from being hit with a food-related stomach bug in the middle of the previous night. The last option, Crusoe Island, was rumored to be closed back on the mainland or we would have taken a boat directly to it in the first place. But what we found was fully operational and pretty close to perfect. However, we did appreciate our "discovery" even more after having walked the length of the island and investigated all other options. That method of multi-hour exploration wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the loose sand with loaded backpacks in the mid-day heat while I suffered waves of nausea and cramps.

We began our Crusoe fantasy by staking down our tent for $2 per night on a rocky outcrop just above the high tide line with no other campers in sight. It was a short walk down the beach to the unexpectedly amazing restaurant and creatively designed hang out area. So then it was no surprise that we decided to stay a couple of extra days. We were so enamored with the place that we even offered to step in as the next round of volunteer staff for an extended stay, but the nice Khmer lady who owns it already had enough help for the foreseeable future. 

In keeping with tradition, we had a mellow New Year's Eve and fell asleep by ten to the bumping and thumping of concerts across the bay at Otres and Sihanoukville. A night swim amongst abundant bioluminescent plankton was the only fireworks show we needed to see anyway. It was an ideal last beach experience for the foreseeable future as our route would take us away from the immediate coastline after we returned to the mainland.

It seems like ages ago that Matt was exchanging bottles of his home brew for donations to the Before It's Gone Journey cause. At the same time, it feels like just yesterday that we hosted a farewell party with a "pop-up thrift store" of our stuff, pledging to set aside proceeds to fund environmental action on our travel. It took us over a year to stumble upon the right opportunity at the right time that was worthy of the generosity sourced from our Naturebridge community, but find it we eventually did. So we'll start this blog off with our appreciation of their sponsorship of our time at Marine Conservation Cambodia.

Last November and December, we took yet another pause in our cycling to spend five weeks volunteering for Marine Conservation Cambodia, based out of an up-and-coming beach resort area called Kep. As the name implies, MCC is a grassroots organization primarily focused on protecting a small section of Cambodia's coast from illegal fishing practices. Trawling in areas shallower than twenty meters, electric-shock fishing, and the collection of organisms with breathing-assistance (i.e. tube fishing) are all highly destructive, short-sighted, yet common harvesting methods that have been banned by Cambodian Fisheries Law. 

The catch (pun intended) is a lack of effective enforcement by Marine Police, who are actually paid off by local and Vietnamese fisherfolk to look the other way. When MCC set up shop just down the beach from a Marine Police outpost on the little island of Koh Seh a couple of years ago, they began picking up the enforcement slack. They conducted their own patrols led by local Khmer staff, confiscating illegal fishing apparatus and chasing boats out of areas that still had enough habitat left for a shot at recovery. This was not without some good ol' Wild West-style drama though. Those rascally Marine Police deployed their firearms (probably for the first time ever) with warning shots intended to scare off the MCC crew, claiming that the illegal boats were "under police protection." That does make for an awkward situation for sharing a tiny island, doesn't it?

Fortunately for the endangered seahorses and other incredible marine creatures not yet scooped up in a trawling net, English ex-pat Paul Ferber, the founder of MCC, is not so easily unsettled from his goal. The rationale for quite literally defending this small triangle in the Gulf of Thailand is to demonstrate that the simple act of enforcement of Cambodia's existing fisheries laws actually created relatively healthy marine ecosystems. And once that happens, everyone will want to have one, ideally spurring the government into nationwide action and thereby saving the future of Cambodia's biodiversity and preserving the livelihoods of small-scale lower-impact fisherfolk.

Of course, all of this silly conservation theory has to be proven effective again and again, and that is where MCC's volunteers come in. By conducting coral reef surveys and collecting data on MCC's flagship seahorse species, the citizen scientists have set a baseline for measuring progress, essentially creating dynamic "before and after pictures" of MCC's enforcement campaign. Monitoring the process of recovery also provides insights as to how quickly specific species recolonize their habitat after it's been decimated, and how successfully certain populations of organisms are able to rebound from human-caused catastrophe. Should this whole enforcement thing catch on in the region, this would be quite a valuable resource to inform other localized restoration efforts and management decisions going forward.

We personally did not get involved in wrangling any fish burglars (so sorry to disappoint you), but we heard that things got a lot more exciting on that front a couple of months after we left! Nonetheless, our experience had many positive aspects combined with some influential challenges that ultimately resulted in a memorable chapter of our journey with a complex aftertaste. That is if chapters had aftertastes. Well, you know what I mean...hopefully. Some examples include:

Shallow Water Diving--It was quite an adjustment to jump in to water that we could almost stand in for the duration of our dives. At times it resembled snorkeling with a scuba tank on. Too deep of a breathe could send you to the surface and a full exhale might have you clunking along the bottom. It was kind of claustrophobic! On the upside, a tank could last all afternoon with no need to conserve, or even check your air supply gauge for that matter. And given that our deepest moments were still above the 15-feet (3-meter) safety stop mark, we could surface as needed for a conversation with our dive buddy when underwater sign language got too confusing. Risk of decompression illness was nil, which made for a low-stress return to diving after my encounter with it a few months prior in Thailand.

seSeagrass is cool, really cool--As we had never spent time diving in the shallows before, this was our introduction to sea grass habitat and the surprisingly diverse collection of species it supports. Sea grass beds don't reveal their secrets easily though. At quick glance, it just appears to be a uniform patch of stubby green blades, kind of like a neglected underwater lawn. This feeling was enhanced by the nearly constant murkiness, the result of suspended sediment in the water from the illegal trawlers churning up the ocean floor just outside MCC's reach of protection. But we learned to appreciate the details while cruising slowly a couple of feet above the grass, and almost each dive revealed something new for us, whether it was the truly insect-like sea moth, adorable crocodile pipefish, or a tiny octopus. And it is only appropriate that these pastures of grass are where the horses of the sea like to hang out!

Spotting the Masters of Camouflage--Finding a sea horse is kind of like an underwater Easter egg hunt, a really hard one, or perhaps a Where's Waldo search if he were sporting a camouflage-printed scuba suit. But the rush of excitement is exactly the same when you do finally lock eyes on one. When Matt and I have dived together previously, I was usually the first one to point out the tiny nudibranchs and tricky scorpionfish. However, at MCC I simply could not spot "my own" sea horse. Once my dive partner (usually Matt but sometimes other volunteers) had already located one, I could hone in on it quickly though. At first, I figured I was just unlucky in that my designated search areas were barren of the sparsely populated critters, but as the weeks dragged on, the statistical odds of that actually being the case went down and down. Finally, it happened! "My" cute little juvenile was too small to be tagged with a non-toxic polymer tattoo for further individual study, but it sure posed for photos nicely so it's smug mug could be added to the citizen science driven database called iSeahorse. And after that encounter, the curse was broken and I began spotting seahorses on almost every dive.

100 dives under our weight belts--Through a combination of sea horse surveys, artificial coral reef maintenance (a.k.a. scrubbing over-abundant algae from rocks), and aimless exploration, we hit the milestone of 100 dives logged. It was only after the fact that we learned from the volunteer coordinator and dive master Amick that we tradition dictates the 100th dive is a naked one. Oh well...Maybe next time! I ended up with a few more dives than Matt overall since he struggled with ear infections for about half of the time we were there, a common ailment when spending so much time equalizing the ears in very warm shallow water that naturally harbors more bacteria.

​Island life--On Koh Seh we lived even more simply than our usual lifestyle while cycle touring. Our bungalow had a cement floor but loosely woven bamboo walls and thatched roof. Showers were of the bucket variety, meaning that we dumped a frugal amount of precious rainwater over our heads. We didn't have to make the typical lengthy decisions about when, where, and what to eat as delicious Khmer meals were provided on a general schedule in an open-sided communal bungalow. A noisy generator provided electricity from dusk to dawn and luxuriously powered a ceiling fan that sort of penetrated the mosquito net we slept under. We could technically connect to the Internet through a distant cellular network, but could rarely load any pages. That was usually just fine with us, as hammocks beckoned and a dip in the ocean was never more than a few steps away. We were close to nature and had no option but to be present in the moment. Except for all those nights we "escaped the island" while watching a movie on our laptop, but I digress. It actually felt unfamiliar to stay in a solid-walled, multi-storied building with running and water and wifi after we left. In fact, in five weeks, we only returned to the mainland for one weekend, so we really got the chance to settle in to the slower, relaxed pace that seems to be an inescapable characteristic of tropical islands.

The sunset ritual--One of my favorite things about the ocean is the sunsets in to it. The MCC base is east-facing, so it had fabulous sunrises that I never saw, save for a few times when I opened my eyes to beautiful colors filtering through the little gaps of our bungalow's woven bamboo wall and promptly fell back asleep, but I don't think that really counts. I don't really like sunrises anyway. Fortunately, it was only a three-minute walk over a minor hill to the other side of the island where a calm, quiet rocky shore provided the perfect place to watch the sunset. With cans of warm Black Panther "Foreign Export Stout" (certainly only distributed domestically) in hand, we made it to that spot every day and took a photo of each sunset, each one with its own mood shaped by the unique combination of meteorological forces at play each day. We usually had the west side of the island to ourselves, except for one constant companion: Jill the Jungle Dog. Part of the daily tradition was bracing ourselves for Jill to come tearing out of the forest for perhaps the most enthusiastic greeting we've ever had from a sweetheart of a canine (and that's saying a lot since I'm not really a dog lover). Due to a serious history of dog drama between MCC's multi-generational family of pit bulls and her, Jill lives a solitary life in the forest with occasional forays to the fringes of the MCC property until the pit bulls pick up her scent. She is free to roam, but I think she does get lonely.

A week with Liger Learning Center--Liger Learning Center is actually named in honor of Napoleon Dynamite's favorite animal, but that is only the first thing that makes it awesome. With the goal of empowering the most brilliant minds of Cambodia's disadvantaged youth to make a difference in their country, the middle school students learn primarily through implementing projects of their own design. Twelve lovely students and three of their wonderful teachers traveled from Phnom Penh to gain firsthand knowledge of the marine environment and the various threats to it. Many were thrilled to swim and snorkel in the ocean for the first time, but were just as enthusiastic to clean 250 pounds of garbage off the beach or examine algae and seagrass under a microscope. Their visit also served as the basis of submitting a proposal for a year-long project to develop alternative sustainable livelihoods for illegal fishers, one possibility being algae aquaculture. As this was our only exposure to the familiar world of environmental education since we began our travel in Asia, we thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the students and bonding with their American teachers. 

The Shoel (rhymes with stool)--Despite having seen a lot of marine debris--and litter on its way to becoming marine debris--at home and in our travels, it was still shocking to see the sheer volume of plastic products washing up on Koh Seh each day. A large garbage bag could be filled with styrofoam in a matter of minutes. Equally depressing was witnessing the black smoke of that garbage pile as it burned. We removed toxins from the sea in one form only to send them to the atmosphere in another, which of course will eventually fall back in to the sea. It was an unsavory and unhealthy catch-22. Sending the rubbish to the mainland would use additional fossil fuels and once there would also be burned, since Cambodia lacks the infrastructure and/or political willpower to deal with waste management in an organized way. (While cycling around Cambodia, we've smelled enough burning plastic to last a lifetime, or at least shorten it.) But without beach clean ups, the island would literally drown in plastic.

The only partial solution was to find a way to burn less plastic, and the only way to do that was to make the debris useful again. MCC diverts a fraction of the styrofoam infestation by shredding it for bean bag stuffing, but I was interested in the creative potential of all the shoes. Yes, shoes. The perimeter of the island was lined with hundreds upon hundreds of flip flops and sandals. The shoes had captivated the imagination of other volunteers too, ranging from a legendary decorative flip flop tree to an uncomfortable hammock. I opted for something basic but solid--a stool. Constructed of about fifty pieces of rejected footwear, "The Shoel" turned out to be a bit of a commitment by the time we collected, washed, drilled holes, and lashed them together with fishing rope also scavenged from the beach. With the (temporary?) success of The Shoel, I was ready to move on to a whole bench, but unfortunately I procrastinated until too close to our departure for that one.

If you can't stand the smoke, get off of the island--Unfortunately, the previously mentioned beach cleanup rubbish was just one source of smoke to fill our nostrils on Koh Seh. Perhaps the least offensive, but still overpowering, was piles of sea grass burned along the beach often filling up our cabin. The beach collected an unnatural amount of sea grass from the illegal trawlers uprooting it as they dragged their nets attached to heavy apparatus along the sea floor. Apparently, if the sea grass wasn't raked off the beach, it would cause a stinky mess of decomposition and its smoke was rumored to keep the mosquitos at bay. More constant was the cigarette smoke. We were in a small minority of non-smokers on the island, so it seemed that there was always someone puffing away upwind of us, which really limited our desire to be social. 

It's the simple things that make a difference--It was also really disappointing to find cigarette butts everywhere on the ground, even intentionally thrown onto the same beach and in to the same ocean that the people doing it were claiming to be protecting! The glaring hypocrisy really boggled our minds. As volunteers, we were actually paying a good chunk of money to pick up litter mostly created by people who were getting paid to be there. When we chose to collect and weigh the litter on a weekly basis, it ranged from three to seven pounds each time!

While it is normal to see butts and litter everywhere in Asia, we had falsely assumed that things would be different in this microcosm of environmental passion. And that's when we realized how our latent expectations had misled us. At least as of yet, MCC is not a broad marine conservation organization consistently concerned about the dispersed but constant threats of climate change, ocean acidification, bioaccumulation of toxins, marine debris, and so on. It is a marine protection organization focused specifically on the most immediate and direct threat of illegal fishing on local habitats and species. We understand it is a relatively young organization; we get that it is resource-strapped from being solely funded by volunteer fees; we know everything is an uphill battle in Cambodia. But none of that is an obstacle to keeping your toxic butt out of the sea or recycling your beer can instead of trying to burn it. As we see it, if you're going to forcefully stop impoverished fisherfolk from destroying the ocean, then you better being doing everything you can to not contribute to its demise either, especially when a starting point would be simply refraining from eating and drinking out of single-use plastic and styrofoam, as one example.

Since the lack of a general environmental ethic was undermining MCC's victories, at least in our eyes, we introduced a "how to walk our talk" initiative as diplomatically as we could. Staff and volunteers brainstormed ideas and got some of them underway. We fashioned lids on garbage cans to see if that helped with the litter problem. I got a compost system up and running that had fallen by the wayside, diverting a portion of the food waste from being dumped and/or burned. Matt nailed makeshift ashtrays to trees near the hammock hangout spots along the beach, where some but not all butts were then deposited. As it turned out, the containers were too big since folks then quickly filled them with empty beer cans and cigarette packaging. We hope we left some idea of accountability for personal actions and perhaps others will continue where we left off.

Perhaps as the strangest moment in our history of environmental activism, we were particularly proud of getting the momentum going on an "incinerator" as slightly better way to burn garbage. While it would not actually reach true incineration temperatures that would eliminate toxins in the burning material, the hope was it would burn faster and more thoroughly, thus reducing the island residents' overall exposure to the fumes and reducing the quantity of toxic ash that then had to be "disposed of." Paul had made the design, rocks for the walls had been hauled to the site, and the foundation had been laid by the time we left. MCC just needed enough money to buy more cement in order for the project to progress. 

We were happy to offer what we could to Marine Conservation Cambodia and we took away new knowledge and gained new skills. We enjoyed getting to know the multicultural and personality-diverse cast of characters on the island, made up of a constantly shifting collection of volunteers, longterm staff, and their kids. We're grateful to have had the opportunity of an experience different from anything else on our journey, even if it wasn't quite the right fit to settle in to for a longer stay. Never totally confident with how our efforts were being received, we were honored to have some people go out of their way to thank us when it was time to move on. Perhaps the best thank you came from the ocean. On the boat ride back to the mainland, we had our first and only sighting of some of the few dolphins still hanging on in these trouble waters.

We arrived to Cambodia's coast at Kep, a couple of weeks after our original plan that was made before my rim cracked in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Kep is an odd place in its modern incarnation, but its quirkiness is rooted in its history. It was first a beach resort town for the French and Cambodian elite from the turn of the 20th century until the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. The French colonial mansions as well as modernist villas were abruptly abandoned, later being stripped of nearly everything as impoverished local residents did whatever they could to survive during those years and through their aftermath. Kep is now on its way to thriving once again as one of the fastest growing areas for tourism, despite only having one small beach with white sand trucked over from Sihanoukville every couple of weeks. There is not a whole lot to do in Kep after gazing upon a collection of seaside statues, poking around the decaying shells of structures built for fancier times, and eating Kep's signature dish of blue crab cooked with local green pepper corns. That does make it ideal for relaxation though, and we found the perfect place to attempt this at a small hillside resort called Khmer Hands Bungalows. It is run as a social enterprise by an American-Khmer couple who provide disadvantaged youth with hospitality and English skills to open up further opportunities in life.

From Kep, we took a boat shuttle out to Koh Tonsay, a.k.a. Rabbit Island, to take the relaxing to the next level. It is not much more than a collection of basic bungalows run by several Khmer families on a tiny island in the Gulf of Thailand. While most people simply alternate between sitting on the beach, swimming, eating, and of course drinking, my idea of relaxing is catching up on this blog. I did at least bring my productivity to a hammock at the water's edge, so the office view was quite soothing as I typed away. That is, until the battery died mid-afternoon several hours before the generator was fired up for the evening. Then I was simply forced to enjoy a sunset and happy hour beers that were cheaper than those on the mainland.

After returning to the mainland from Rabbit Island, it wasn't long before we were headed out on another boat to a neighboring island in the gulf. In Kep, we had been in discussion with an organization called Marine Conservation Cambodia about the possibility of volunteering with them. They invited us to check out their research base on Koh Seh (Horse Island) for a few days to learn more about them. As the boat pulled in to the pier, we were greeted by a tribe of outgoing kids wearing homemade cardboard masks. We had happened to arrive just as Halloween festivities were, a trick or treat circuit to all of the bungalows, and a not-so-scary story campfire. Almost all of the kids had grown up in Cambodia, so the phrase "trick or treat" had to be explained to them. It didn't stick, so by the time they got to our bungalow, I had to prompt them with "What do you say?" while holding the candy bowl above my head. They all put on their sweetest smiles and in unison said, "Please!" It was perhaps the only time I have ever told a child not to say please! "Nope, don't say please, say trick or treat!" The evening was a great introduction to the island and we felt instantly absorbed into the family atmosphere.

The next couple of days we snorkeled along the reef, cleaned up a small section of the beach covered in plastic pollution from the Cambodian and Vietnamese mainlands, and chatted with the staff and volunteers on the island. We got a good vibe from it all so, while watching a brilliant sunset, we decided that we should commit at least a month of our journey to contributing to the efforts here in any way we could.

However, with limited internet connectivity on the island, we weren’t quite ready to jump in right away. We needed a bit of time to be ready to disconnect, so we returned to Kep. After a nice evening at the Treetop Bungalows, we cycled a couple of hours west to the riverside town of Kampot, a pleasant haven for a plethora of ex-pats to run restaurants and bars all catering to each other. Our visit coincided with the first annual Kampot Writers and Readers Festival so town was a little more lively than usual for that time of the year. In keeping with Cambodian style, it was still a laidback affair with loose organization, but in principle it was a really cool idea. After attending one disappointing session about travel writing, I decided that it wasn’t worth sparing the time to try the other events though. I had a lot of my own travel writing to catch up on!

We had picked some simple and cheap riverside bungalows a ways out of town center as a quiet place to work. It was peaceful for a couple of days, despite loud construction of new bungalows right next to ours beginning at 7am. Unfortunately, the weekend came around and an obnoxious group of partiers showed up that we dubbed “The Glitter People” as they were for some reason covered in silver glitter. The Glitter People joined the music pumping at the bungalow competitors next door, then returned in the middle of the night unable to remember which bungalow was theirs. We know this because a couple of them stood in front of ours and stupidly debated about whether or not their bungalow had two bikes parked in front of it….um, no dude, not your cabin.

We relocated into the town center the next morning, which allowed for several days of café hopping, literally spending all day working on the computer, only stretching the legs and getting a change of scenery as the next meal or snack time approached. We found the best spot for coffee, amazing mango and passionfruit sorbet, and even authentic Italian pasta and gnocchi cooked up along local food in a row of food stalls over the course of our daily wanderings. After a day or so of errands and shopping to prepare for the isolation of island living, we cycled back to Kep and headed out to Koh Seh to begin our month with Marine Conservation Cambodia.

Every program I have led for No Barriers Youth has been energy-intensive, but I was a wreck this time when I returned to Hanoi. It was a successful trip and the students and teachers from the Foshay Learning Center in Los Angeles were lovely. The problem was that I got distractingly ill midway through the experience, which really affected my stamina and job performance. The symptoms were suspiciously similar to the illness Matt had suffered through nearly two weeks prior in Kunming, which seems like too long of an interval for me to have caught it from him, but who knows.
 
It took a few days for me to recover to a mostly functioning state of existence, but even longer to receive an extension of my Vietnam visa. The Vietnamese consulate in Kunming would not issue a 90-day multi-entry visa, which I needed for my No Barriers commitment in China. I had to settle for a 30-day multi-entry visa while Matt got a 90-day single-entry one. Oh, the bureaucracy! We would later learn that this was only the beginning of my Vietnam visa ordeal.
 
In the meanwhile, we stayed with Tim and Carlina, great Warm Showers hosts who had kept my bicycle and gear while I was away. They had a lovely apartment near Tay Ho and they generously cooked up yummy pasta dinners for us and showed us the best places to eat in their neighborhood. Despite being in good company, we were getting anxious to leave Hanoi and see more of Vietnam. 
 
Once we had picked up my passport from the visa agency, we hit the road heading west into the hills. We hadn't cycled any significant distance consistently since Matt's rim cracked in Nujiang Valley six weeks before, so it was no wonder that it felt like we were starting the cycle tour from scratch yet again. I had lost my usual heat tolerance after spending too much time in air conditioning and my mental and physical energy levels were still in a delicate state of flux. Combining that with steep shadeless hills on the way to one of the hottest regions of Vietnam at the hottest time of the year made for a couple of rough days of slow progress getting to Mai Chau for me. In contrast, Matt was unusually positive and upbeat, grateful for the return of even my cranky companionship after I had abandoned him for eleven days.
 
By the time we were coasting down the other side of the final hill before Mai Chau, my mood had improved enough to sufficiently appreciate the verdant beauty of the valley from a scenic overlook along the road. Though it was far from wild, the attraction lay in the bright green rice paddies spanning the perfectly flat valley floor interspersed with clusters of villages. Homestays are the mainstay of Mai Chau's tourism and we chose one overlooking what else but rice paddies at the edge of Ban Poom village. Having heard that Mai Chau is "really touristy", we were expecting something a bit more obnoxious, but what we found was laid back, peaceful village bliss. Perhaps it's different on the weekends.
 
As we slowly rode through the neighboring village of Ban Lac, we were invited to join a group of men for a cup of coffee. They were so thrilled that we accepted that the oldest one, wearing a white wifebeater, kissed both of us on the cheeks and insisted on paying. Now that is what I call a good caffeine buzz! After coffee, we explored the network of little roads and trails leading off through the rice fields to other White Thai villages. Venturing further up a side valley, we stumbled upon a large brick production site where laborers threw bricks from a wheelbarrow onto a conveyor belt headed in to a tremendous barn-like shelter. 
 
Later, we met up with a spirited traveler named Donna over beers with the intent of watching a sunset that never materialized. She is an English woman with a passion for cultural costumes expressed through her wittily-titled blog Haute Culture Fashion. Our homestay host cooked up, or more accurately, fried up a dinner of spring rolls, ground pork wrapped in betel leaves, chicken legs, and even a few caterpillars if we dared. We did. Matt thought his tasted like a French fry, but I got a distinctive rancid rubber flavor.
 
We could have easily relaxed at Mai Chau for a few days, but having just gotten on the road again, we thought it better to keep moving. And since I was truly feeling better, there was really no excuse. We said goodbye to the stilted house we had called home for a night and headed south in to Pu Luong Nature Reserve. It was brutally hot, made worse by the fact that each incline consistently blocked the gentle breeze that we could occasionally feel at the top of each rise. It was a clear choice between going as slowly as possible with lots of breaks in the shade or dealing with the risks of heat exhaustion. We tried to keep the sweat out of our eyes long enough to appreciate the beauty of the undeveloped valley we were riding through, but in the heat of the day it was honestly pretty hard to care.
 
As dusk was settling in, we began scoping camp spots and asking villagers along the ridge line road for leads on a place to sleep. We were consistently directed to a rough dirt road plunging to the valley bottom, so we decided to go for it, really really hoping that it would work out. The loose gravel turned to a narrow paved footpath, or what we assumed would only be a footpath. After letting some young drunk guys pass by on their motorbikes, we dismounted and walked our bikes down the steep curving path, not trusting our cantilever brakes to sufficiently control our speed. The path dropped us in to Kho Muong village on the valley floor. We were quickly directed to a homestay, but we were quickly turned off by the quantity of empty beer cans surrounding the host and his insistence that we sit down and begin drinking immediately. 
 
Knowing that homestays have been set up throughout Pu Luong as a community-based eco-tourism initiative, we set off in search of a better option and couldn't have ended up with a nicer family, finding them completely by chance. Similar to the previous night in Mai Chau, they set up a mattress on the floor encased in a mosquito net in the middle of a huge room clearly intended for groups. The paneless windows in the stilted house overlooked a pond with fireflies twinkling above it. We joined the family in the kitchen, which soon filled with about twenty neighbors, most of them women. The reason for the gathering was unclear, as was whether it was a special or regular occurrence. Shots of ruou (Vietnamese rice wine) were poured, but the mood was neither particularly festive nor somber. We later learned from the teen daughter and her translation app that her mother was suffering from fibroids and local Muong custom dictates that people should visit often to keep the ill company and bring good luck to their recovery. 
 
Having arrived at dark the day before, it was no question that we would stay another day to explore the secluded area. We walked through the village and out to a limestone cave with large pillars inside seemingly formed by rockfall from the cave’s ceiling. Locally known as the Bat Cave, we saw more cave crickets than bats, as well as a memorable cave cricket predator that like a centipede with extremely long legs.

For the rest of the day, we relaxed in the shade under our host family’s house, sharing a pot of coffee with the father Nom, and chatting with him in the limited way we could carry on conversation. It also happened to be my 34th birthday, so I was happy add this place to the diverse list of global locations where I have turned a year older.
We had been dreading our departure from Kho Muong village since first walking our bikes down the crazy path. We had assumed we would be pushing them up as well, but did not expect that both of us would have to push one bike together! We would push one bike for a section and park it, then walk back down for the second bike, leapfrogging our way out of the valley bottom like this for over an hour. When we returned to the gravel road, we rode down and out of Pu Luong Nature Reserve, passing some more picturesque villages and greenery-scenery on the way.

Our route for the next five days took us through “everyday rural Vietnam” filled with flat agricultural valleys, climbing forested hills in between them, and small towns where we would find a random guesthouse to spend the night. We succumbed to what I call with disdain “alarm clock cycle touring,” where a rude noise awakes one from blissful slumber as though pedal pushing were a job with a strict work schedule. We learned from the Vietnamese who voluntarily rise before the first light of day that the benefit of a few hours of cooler morning temperatures was worth it. What we didn’t succeed in adopting was the long afternoon nap that gives the Latin American siesta a run for its money. Businesses shut, nary a person on the street, everyone dead to the world in hammocks or wooden platform day beds, mid-day cycling felt like riding through a hellishly hot ghost town.

Our favored antidote to the heat was frequent stops at the ubiquitous nuoc mia stands, always with a shady seating area. Stalks of sugar cane were pressed on demand through motorized rollers, then the light green juice was poured over ice in a hefty glass mug. A pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime made the surprisingly not-too-sweet beverage perfectly refreshing and energizing. As a member of the grass family, sugarcane has a high concentration of vitamins, minerals, and polyphenols, so we had no qualms about drinking a couple of glasses per day.

An ongoing fascination with water buffalos broke up the monotony of rice, rice, and more rice fields lining the road. And then there was the joyful distraction of the “hello zone”, stretching at least a quarter of a mile from either side of the road. Oftentimes, we could hear a faint hello, but not even be able to locate the source. Almost everyone greeted us, young and old, and usually repetitively. One hello would not suffice. The standard was “Hellowhat’syourname?” to which we learned responding with our name didn’t seem to matter and asking “What’s your name?” didn’t seem to register. We were always amused to get an “I love you” and even more entertained by the random “F--- you” too, always yelled by teen boys, not too surprisingly.

The few times we stopped when people greeted us, it really caught them off guard. They didn’t know what to do. However, one time we circled back to a group of women sitting on the side of the road in the shade of a karst outcrop. For some reason, I was inspired to take their photo if they agreed to it. Before I could even get that far, we were instructed to park our bikes and take a rest with them. They poured tea and pushed pomelo, mango, and starfruit on us. Many smiles were exchanged. Then one woman phoned her daughter with excellent English to come from the village nearby. We chatted with her for quite a while and learned that the women were sitting there to watch over their cattle grazing in the field on the other side of the road. As if on cue, her mother got up and ran off toward the cows, having heard the rumor that one of hers was giving birth. The spontaneous roadside fruit party was one of those simple moments that served as an invaluable reminder of why we travel by bicycle, and it came at a time when we were (re)questioning whether the self-imposed difficulty was really worth it.

We arrived to Phong Nha-Khe Bang National Park at the tail end of a downpour we had been cycling in for eight miles. As soon as we dried off in a hotel room, the sun came out so we got oriented to the area while walking around Phong Nha town. Phong Nha has grown in popularity as a tourism destination in the last few years. While the main attraction is an elaborate limestone cave system boasting the largest (known) caves in the world, visitors are also attracted to the rural countryside surrounding the park. We were no different and explored both aspects.
The following day we toured Phong Nha cave, taking a motorboat from the town upstream to the mouth of the river cave. The driver cut the engine and a team of two pulled oars at the front and back of the sizeable boat into the cave. We traveled about a kilometer inside, but the cave extends much further than that. The key formations were lit up and made for an intriguing sight. Some flat areas just inside the broad entrance of the cave served as shelter and a makeshift hospital during the American-Vietnam War. We also climbed up to Tien Son, a dry cave with a meandering boardwalk through the tremendous, but delicate, formations. The unusually large caves and advanced stalactites and stalagmites have been forming for 400 million years in the oldest karst mountains in Asia, so it’s no surprise the park has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Before leaving Phong Nha, we whiled away an afternoon at the perfectly peaceful Wild Boar Eco Farm. The farm is self-sustaining with its namesake product, in addition to peanuts and small plots of other crops. However, the young owner Cuong saw the potential for an eco-tourism venture, perhaps inspired by a now overly-popular neighbor known as The Pub with Cold Beer. The premise of both places is to provide a spot for backpackers to day-drink in the countryside with the added excitement of butchering a local chicken for a tasty lunch. After passing by the Pub, we were so glad that we continued up the rough dirt track to seek out the immensely more charming Wild Boar Eco-Farm, tucked away on a property with an amazing view overlooking a lazy river.

Hammocks with beers were immediately in order, but soon we were hungry. We ordered chicken, priced by the kilo. Cuong drove off on his motorbike and was gone for a long time. Just as we were joking that he would return with a cooked chicken from the Pub with Cold Beer, he came back with a live one-kilo chicken tucked under his arm. We met the poor gal briefly, then watched Cuong through the entire preparation process including slitting the throat and collecting the blood, defeathering in hot water, cutting and splaying out the body for charcoal grilling. Meanwhile, his wife cooked up morning glory with garlic and a peanut dipping sauce with nuts from their farm. It was a genuine farm-to-table experience, slow food that actually lived up the concept’s hype, and was absolutely delicious to the last bite.
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I rounded out the afternoon with an innertube float in the river just as a light rain shower began, then we got to talking with Cuong about his business. Understandably, he wants to grow his limited customer base, expand his menu, and build a guesthouse. We tried to emphasize that his place’s current appeal is in its simplicity and the value of its authenticity. Even with significant language barriers, we got the sense that Cuong’s genuineness will prevail over profit. We trust that he will not intentionally try to make it into something that it’s not meant to be. But places don’t always change on purpose, sometimes they just “get discovered,” a character-shifting force beyond any individual’s control. And if that happens, at least we can remember it as it was before it was gone. Despite the temptation to ask Cuong if we could camp out at his farm for a week, we readied ourselves to keep moving on from Phong Nha.