In the northeast of Cambodia lies Ratanakiri Province. Less touristy, maybe even not touristy, Ratankiri has a lot of what many backpackers say they want but never make an effort to see: the "real" Cambodia. I write real in quotes because I am not qualified to say what real is and, from my understanding, Ratankiri is the real Cambodia, but I, personally, am not sure. Either way, I really enjoyed Ban Lung, Ratankiri Province, Cambodia.
The town of Ban Lung itself is not a good introduction to the area. It is dusty and unappealing. However, if you have made it this far you know that the town is not the reason you came here. You came for what is around the town; a volcanic lake, some picturesque waterfalls, and some nice hiking and biking.
The crater lake in the Yeak Laom volcano is one of my favorite things in Cambodia. It is simple, beautiful, and beautiful in its simplicity. The lake is not particularly difficult to reach, taking only about a half hour on bicycle. Of course, the US$1/day bicycle rental turned out to be one of the most expensive purchases I have made so far during my travels as I had a minor fall on the bike and seriously damaged my camera. The damage is such that I can still take pictures fine but the screen is shot and completely not functional. So, I cannot reasonably change any setting, see exactly what I am zoomed in on, know how much space is left on my memory card, how much battery I have left, etc. It is obviously inconvenient but worse than I expected it to be.
Once at the lake, me and an English couple I made met made our way to the farther of the two "piers" as the first seemed to have a family gathering taking place. The second pier only had a handful on teenagers jumping off the wooden structure and goofing off. We immediately joined. The water was surprisingly warm but still cool enough to be refreshing. One of the things I am try to on this trip in each body of water I swim in is to swim out to where the water is deeper than I am tall, then swim down and touch the bottom with my hand. Of course I tried doing this here when I realized there was no bottom within reach; the depth of the water at the edge of the lake was deeper than I trusted myself to dive down into.
Before long the group of Cambodians that we were sharing the pier with started doing dives off the pier. Of course, I followed suit, best I could. The dives were nothing fancy, though their form was much better than mine. Simple flips and cannonballs. I asked, via hand motions, about a backflip. They indicated "no," which of course only made me more interested in trying one. After standing with my back to the water on the ledge of the pier for far too long, with the English couple ready to go, I finally managed to bring myself to attempt a backflip. Terrible form but I did it none the less. I promptly got out of the water and started to dry myself off a bit to head back. Right then one of the Cambodians got my attention, indicated for my to watch, and executed a flawless backflip dive. I am disappointed and impressed.
With the bicycle rental I got a free map of the area around Ban Lung with several of the highlights included. I decided I wanted to visit one waterfall in particular that was about 27km (about 17 miles) away. This is doable on bike, but I decided to hire a motorbike and driver so that I could also visit several other waterfalls and actually find what I was looking for instead of getting lost as almost nothing is clearly marked. In all I visited four or five waterfalls, two or three which where not all that exciting. The one that was the most fun had strong vines near the fall allowing you to swing into the resulting lake. This is as fun as it sounds and occupied me for quite some time.
The most beautiful and fun for entirely different reasons was the one that was 27km away, called Seven Layer Waterfall. My driver dropped me off near the falls and I started walking along the river/falls to the upper-most layer. On my way there I passed by a group of Cambodians drinking. The called me over and offered my a swig of beer. I obliged, chatted in severely broken English for a bit, and then left saying I would come back. Shortly after I made it to the top layer and then proceeded to walk back down. On my way passing again the gave me a full, unopened beer, to encourage me to sit down and enjoy the whole can with them. Again, I obliged and again, in severely broken English we chatted. A couple of beers later, I left once again, this time continuing down to the lower layers of the fall. After the top few layers the "trail" along the river/falls ceases and I proceeded by water means necessary. Sometimes I was climbing rocks, other times I was jumping rocks in the river, other times I was straddling a huge log. It was an adventure and highly rewarding. It was getting dark and I decided to do the driver (and myself) a favor and head back to where he dropped me off so that we could return to Ban Lung. The 27km there and back are some of the worst "roads" that I experienced in Cambodia and was not the kind of trip you want to do in the dark.
Ban Lung ended up being my favorite place in Cambodia despite the broken camera. More backpackers should made the effort to get here and get a better feel for what they are looking for.
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