September 2014, Jenny and I set off for the next adventure – Cambodia! We crammed two adventures into this trip. The first was a week volunteering at Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary (CWS), which this guide is all about, and a second week at Siem Reap and the world famous Angkor Wat temples which can be found here shortly (under construction!).

I have separated the review as most people will be interested in one or the other, but please feel free to read both! 🙂

CWS is one of the projects by Save Elephant Foundation, which also includes the flagship project at Elephant Nature Park (you can read that guide here).

It is very easy to get to CWS, as it is only an hour north of Siem Reap which has a full international airport to cater for all the Angkor Wat visitors. Again see the Siem Reap guide for airport advice!

The CWS team in the form of Chet the volunteer coordinator came to the hotel to pick us up, and we met Leann, another Aussie who would be with us for the week. Bags thrown into the back of the ute and away we went heading north from the city. Mother Nature chose to remind us that we were not quite out of the wet season yet so a quick stop to move the bags into another CWS car was required enroute.

Head over to the Siem Reap guide when completed if you want to know more about the Cambodian countryside – and you should!

A little over an hour later and we drove through the Checkpoint Charlie entry to CWS, a reminder that the Army/Rangers were always on duty to protect the wildlife from poachers.

Here are a few snaps of the Rangers over the week – all a great bunch of guys who do a great job at CWS.

 

Before arriving at CWS I was a little concerned what the accommodation was going to be like. I had managed to find a video that Lek and Darrick had done which spoke about how they planned to turn the upstairs of the main building into a volunteer dorm. So I was expecting beds on the floor, open walls etc. Turns out the video was a couple of years old and a few light years away from the current set up!

We were given our room keys with a promise to return back for lunch and a briefing once we dropped off our bags. We were allocated cabin lucky #9. And wow how good did they look – rustic thatch roof, timber sides, lights, verandah, and beautiful views of the jungle. Inside the beds were nice and clean, loads of room and of course the all-important mozzie nets so that we did not volunteer blood at night. A quick look around and we found the toilet and shower block not far away – it was going to be camping showers for the week. It takes a bit of practice to shower with a ladle of water from a large plastic bin but it still feels good after a hard day in the heat!

A quick change into some work clothes, and dust of the camera and we headed back to the main building – ready to head into the jungle to meet the elephants. First though a chance to meet our fellow volunteers, Ewan and Serena (England) touring Asia after University, Leann (Australian) touring Asia indefinitely, and James also an Aussie who was touring Cambodia on his trusty motorbike. James would continue to amuse us with his witty and insightful travel blog long after our little holiday. So with absolutely no jealousy at all that each of our companions were touring for months, we set off to explore the jungle for the first time.

The walk was about 15mins to the watering hole (can I call it a billabong in Asia?) that the elephants like to use to cool down. After those fifteen minutes I could totally relate to the need to cool down! Heat and humidity were my new friends and they were here to stay!

It was not long before Arun Reah came quietly and confidently striding out of the jungle, ready to meet the latest batch of volunteers. It is one of those great feelings to watch an elephant wander towards you, and brought my mind straight back to Elephant Nature Park and the reason why all the volunteers work to save these magnificent creatures.

For her part Arun Reah seems to tolerate us volunteers and was always ready to do spot inspections in case you had any bananas hidden on your person. Remember you can never fool an elephant’s sense of smell, and Arun Reah is a very determined elephant.

As such she followed her mahout into the watering hole, and the volunteers duly followed to give her a wash and get robbed of bananas at a startling rate.

Such gentle giants to be beside, but giants all the same. These animals have amazing memory and capacity for emotions but are here after being rescued from beatings and slavery by humans.  Some still fear us, some like to be alone and some like the company of others, but none seem to harbor hatred like humans would in the same situation. It really is a pleasure to walk with them and watch them interact.

Banana-less but loaded with photographs we headed back to base for a bucket shower and evening meal. The food at CWS is vegetarian and with enough for vegans to be happy too. Meat eaters like me are out of luck, but that is part of the learning anyhow and fully understood by all volunteers. After all we are here to help the animals not to consume them.  I have to say too that a week of eating vegetarian at CWS is just not like the same effort in Australia/Europe – the food is so varied, tasty, and full of the energy you need to work each day. The ladies in the kitchen do such a great job – some of the unsung heroes of the project!

The work pattern is familiar if you have been to ENP.  Breakfast at 0700, work starts at 0800 with plenty of breaks to help us poor foreigners cope with the heat and humidity. Typically by 0830 I was dripping with sweat and probably hadn’t achieved much at all! It is noted that the amount of sweat is related to how many Cambodian beers are consumed the evening before, so tread carefully!

Lunch was at 1300 and the work day ended at about 1600. But what was the work I hear you ask? Well the first rule is to be ready for anything! Although Chet has a program, this is a new project and sometimes work just pops up that requires attention. One day we even had a shout for help, one of the rangers had spotted a fire burning in the jungle. There is no TV show fire service around here! Everyone that could fit in rushed to the vehicles and set off at pace to the fire. I was reminded of Eyrol Flynn in the guise of General Custer “we ride to the sound of the guns”! Large branches and anything that comes to hand were used to bash the flames into submission before they could get out of control.

Crazy days aside though, work consisted of weeding out the plant nursery, planting seeds that would grow to be food for future volunteers, planting trees to help the forest recover, cleaning out the ponds for the ducks and geese, preparing the food gardens, planting them, and whatever manual work was required to keep the project running. The rains had washed away sections of the road so some time was spent filling that in with soil. Not sure how good a job we did with that though, I was left with the impression that another group of volunteers would be doing similar if we had more big rains! At least one evening was set aside for teaching English to the Rangers – this can be amusing when you have an English, Irish and Australian trying to teach pronunciation when even we can’t agree!!

As the project grows the involvement with the local community will grow too, after all this project is also about getting the local community involved in caring for the jungle and the wildlife that will hopefully come back.

Last and definitely not least was the preparation of the elephant food each afternoon. This consisted of chopping up melons, banana trees and bunches of bananas themselves. The food was not really enough to fill their needs but rather a tasty supplement to what they find each day in the jungle.

 

CWS is a great place to volunteer, rewarding and fun. It will be so interesting to see the park evolve and grow over the coming years, watch the jungle recover, and see more elephants and wildlife find sanctuary and call CWS home. I certainly look forward to the next visit in 2015.

Random pictures around CWS: