Mountain Cascades

Day 76: Koh Kong Conservation Area (K). “Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!”, Karen exclaimed. “I feel like the woman from the Herbal Essences advert”, she added with a great deal of relief as she cooled off beneath the cascading waters.

The previous days storms had raged well into the night, but with a new day came a new calm which we hoped would allow us to trek deep into the jungle to the peace and tranquillity of the Tatai Waterfall. Engaging the services of Mr Lei, a Khmer park ranger from Bokor, we were soon scrambling up steep cliffs and hacking through dense foliage in an attempt to follow an overgrown and little used path westwards towards the ocean.

The heat and humidity of the jungle was stifling. I was sweating so much my clothes seemed as wet as they were the previous day when we got caught in the summer monsoon! And with the humidity, came our old friend the leeches. This time though we were without the luxury of protective leggings and so we had to endure their little fangs sinking in to our tasty white flesh. “Remove them gently”, Janet had advised us before we left the Lodge, “They're all Gods creatures after all”. Now, well away from the safety and security of our accommodation, Karen and I were dealing with them in our way. Karen would bash them to death with her boots, Mr Lei would fry them alive using his zippo lighter and I would inflict pain using any one of the twenty-eight implements on my Swiss Army knife!

But all of these minor inconveniences were soon forgotten as we emerged from the darkness of the jungle to witness a thundering set of rapids plunging over a forty foot rock shelf. Relaxing in the refreshing mountain waters Karen and I rejoiced at the solitude and beauty of this place. Mr Lei nursed his leech bitten ankles and refilled his trusty lighter!