I don’t really know how the lion sleeps

After chilled Kep and its Crabs, we took an uneventful 9 hours bus journey to Sen Monorom. The most fun was waiting in Kep at 7:30 for a bus we had booked by telephone and hoping it would stop and have available seats. It did and it had. 4 hours of karaoke videos later we’re in Phnom Pehn. Change buses and 5 and a half hours of jumpy crammed travel later, Moldukiri, Sen Monorom the wild east.

One day resting at the Tree Lodge, aptly named after Mr. Tree, the owner, and some waterfall swimming.

Then we are off for a two day jungle trek and elephant encounters.First day, a morning 5 km trek followed by lunch andswimming at a 30m waterfall. Cold water but who cares. Free spa water massages. Everybody manages to overcome their natural aversion to cold (more on that later).

 
More jungle trekking in the afternoon. We walk through the hilly forest, pass by manioc, pineapple and cashew plantations, make chance encounters with a snake and take in the scenery.

 
We arrive at the Nature Lodge at 4 pm and immediately crash into its comfy hammocks waiting for our dinner to be ready.  Bamboo soup and pineapple pork. We round up the evening with some Truth Macao(Romanian uno combined with the truth part of truth or dare), a large bottle of rice wine and some unexpected soul searching with our trek friends answering questions like what is  your greatest desire and what is your greatest fear. Everybody is in a good mood, we all joke how it’s warmer than we expected.

 
9 pm, time to hit the sack. Pretty literally. We settle in into our hammocks overlooking the valley and surrounded by jungle sounds. Sleeping in a hammock under the open air while various night insects and animals practice their calls can be intimidating at first but the rice wine and the trek prove to be reliable helpers of the sandman.

3 am, everybody is freezing. I realize that Cristina had the right approach, she has brought her winter jacket to sleep in. The temperature dropped to 13C and most of us are not ready. Everybody stirs and turns in their cocoon, i resolve to watch the beautiful moonlight filled valley below and listen to the jungle. The tree next to my hammock stirs, I don’t want to find out why.

Sunrise comes at around 6 am and not a moment to soon. We start to get out of our pupas one by one. We hunt the sun and the hot tea. Breakfast is ready. We all need a good night sleep and every one hugs whoever he or she can for the warmth.