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Story time! Things go wrong when you travel. It happens to everyone and while it can be scary at the time, it can sometimes make for a great story after. This is about the time I found myself lost in the middle of the Cambodian jungle.
Christmas 2018
I was spending Christmas on an island in Cambodia called Koh Rong. It was a beautiful place, but I really wanted to see elephants in Cambodia. I had done a ton of research to find an ethical elephant sanctuary in the northeastern part of the country. It was far, but I had plans to go to Vietnam, so it was somewhat on the way.
The Elephant Sanctuary was in a town called Sen Monorom. To get there, I had to:
- Leave Koh Rong by taking a ferry to Sihanoukville (45 minutes)
- Take a bus from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh (5ish hours)
- Then take another bus from Phnom Penh to Sen Monorom (6ish hours)
Long day right? But I really REALLY wanted to see elephants.
The day started off fine. I successfully took the ferry to Sihanoukville and made it on my bus to Phnom Penh. This is where everything started to go wrong.
There was a local man on my 7 hour bus who couldn’t sit still. He was constantly yelling on the phone, and at one point he made the driver stop the bus so he could jump out the window and use the bathroom in the woods.
With all the stops and ruckus this guy was making, in addition to traffic, our bus was running about 2.5 hours late. I had missed my connecting bus, and, for some reason, my phone wouldn’t work. I had no way to book a new route, so I would just have to wait until I arrived at the station. There might not even be another bus until the next day, which would cause me to miss my elephant tour.
As soon as we arrived in Phnom Penh I jumped out of the bus, grabbed a tuk tuk and said, “Take me to the bus station!” He sped through the streets and luckily, there was one bus left going to Sen Monorom. It would arrive at 5:00 in the morning, and I had told my accommodation that I would arrive at midnight. I had no way of contacting them, but I had to get to the city, so I hopped on the bus.
The bus was a night bus, so I was able to catch a little bit of sleep on my bunk bed type seat. We arrived early, at about 4:30 in the morning. I had the foresight to download maps of the city before arriving, so even though my phone service wasn’t working, I still had somewhat of an idea of where I was going. However, I still had no way to contact the hotel and, from what I could see on the maps, the hotel was a type of bungalow in the jungle– a 35 minute walk from me. Even if I somehow managed to get to the bungalow, I had no way of getting inside because there wasn’t a 24/7 reception desk.
I started asking locals at the bus station if they had a phone I could borrow so that I could call my hotel. Of course they didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Khmer, so I had to act out me using a phone to call. They all said no, probably worried that this foreigner girl by herself in the early hours of the morning would try to steal the phone.
One girl worked in tourism and spoke a tiny bit of English and asked where I was going. I gave her the name of my hotel and she said she would be back in 15 minutes. She never came back. I kept asking more locals and kept receiving the same answer. One woman started laughing at me every time I asked, so I finally gave up and started my trek to the jungle.
I thought that I could maybe find a hotel or store where I could make a call, but this is a very small town in Cambodia and the only people I met were setting up for the morning fish market.
As I kept walking, I eventually reached some neighborhoods on the outskirts of the jungle. I was walking in silence, probably about 15 minutes away from my destination, when I saw a dog cross in front of me.
It’s just a dog. I love dogs and all animals. In this case though, I was in his territory and he saw me as a threat. I heard barking behind me and soon I had 2 dogs behind and one in front.
I started walking more slowly, but they kept coming. Two more dogs came on either side and before I knew it, I was trapped in the middle of a circle of 7 or 8 dogs. I suddenly thought back to a girl I had met in Koh Rong, who was bitten by a dog in Vietnam and had to go to the hospital for a rabies shot. In this case, I would probably end up a lot worse than a rabies shot.
I didn’t want to make any sudden movements, so I stopped completely. This seemed to encourage them, as they got closer. Slowly, I took a step. Then another. And slowly another. I thought, at this rate I’ll reach my hotel in an hour. But hey, I’ll still be alive.
After probably about 10 minutes of me slow-stepping, some locals came out on their porches. The first few just stood and watched me struggle to walk around the dogs, until one man finally yelled and called them off.
When I finally reached the hotel, it was about six in the morning and, sure enough, the lobby was closed. The reception was supposed to open at seven, so I set my backpack down and laid on top of it, trying to sleep until I heard movement.
Finally, around 7 A.M., the light in the reception turned on. I knocked on the door to be let in, and the worker started laughing at me for sleeping on the porch. He showed me to my bungalow, but I had to be up at 8 A.M. for my elephant tour so I still couldn’t fully settle in. Exhausted, I entered my bungalow, a wooden shack in the middle of the jungle.
There were ants and spiders covering my bed, and I found a little friend inside the toilet. Fortunately, he was already dead, but unfortunately, I had no way to get him out. There were geckos on all the windows and nothing exactly barring small creatures from getting inside the bungalow. It definitely made the top of my list of worst places I’ve ever stayed at.
At this point, I was too exhausted to do anything but sleep, so I brushed the ants off my bed and slept for 45 minutes until my elephant tour began.
After my day and night from hell, I finally got to see elephants. I have to say that despite everything, it turned out to be amazing. This refuge is a blocked off part of the jungle and the elephants are free to roam wherever they want. They come because they want food from tourists, but if they don’t show up, it’s their choice. There are only about four elephants, and all of them are rescued, usually from the elephant rides at Siem Reap or from a lifetime of logging work.
I highly recommend going to the Elephant Sanctuary but please, PLEASE, plan better than me when you go. And don’t try to pet the rabid dogs xx
