Cambodia on foot: the Cardamoms and Mondulkiri

Both places are genuinely worth the days. Both are also frequently oversold. This article sets out what the walking is actually like, when it is possible, and who we would and would not send.

The honest frame

Three things to accept before you decide.

You are unlikely to see large mammals. Cambodia’s forests were heavily hunted through decades of conflict and their recovery is recent and fragile. Wild elephants, leopards and bears are present in both areas in small numbers and almost nobody sees them. What you realistically get is gibbon song at dawn, hornbills overhead, macaques, langurs, extraordinary insects and, in Mondulkiri, a reasonable chance of seeing primates properly.

The difficulty is heat and humidity, not gradient. Days are typically 5 to 9 miles (8 to 15 km) with modest climbing, and they feel much harder than the same distance in a temperate country. If you walk regularly at home you will be fine. If you do not, this is not the place to start.

The accommodation is simple. Community homestays, hammocks with mosquito nets under a tarpaulin, or a small number of tented camps with proper beds and hot water. There is no middle tier of comfortable lodges here in the way there is in northern Vietnam.

The Cardamom Mountains

The Cardamoms are the largest surviving rainforest in mainland Southeast Asia, a block of hills and river valleys running down the south-west of the country towards the coast, roughly 100 miles (160 km) from Phnom Penh and reachable in four to five hours by road.

Chi Phat is the anchor. It is a community ecotourism project in a village that used to live from logging and hunting and now largely lives from visitors, with former poachers working as guides. That is not marketing language, it is the reason the project exists, and it is the single most convincing thing about it. You arrive by boat up the Preak Piphot river, sleep in village homestays or a simple guesthouse, and walk out from there.

Trails from Chi Phat run from a half day to three days. The good ones:

• The waterfall day. Around 7 miles (11 km) return, forest track, swimming at the end, back for lunch.
• The two-day burial jar trek. Overnight in hammocks, up to a site of pre-Angkorian ceramic burial jars on a ridge. This is the one people remember, and it is properly remote.
• Mountain biking and river kayaking, which fill the days you are not walking.

The tented camps. A small number of camps sit deeper in the range, run in partnership with conservation organisations, where part of your rate funds ranger patrols and you can go out with a patrol for a day. They are expensive by Cambodian standards and they are the only way to sleep comfortably inside the forest. We name the specific camp in your proposal, because the operation and the season both matter and neither is constant.

Season. December to April only, in practice. From June the rivers rise fast, the tracks turn to mud and leech pressure becomes serious. In September and October we will not build it, and we would rather say so than sell an itinerary that cannot run.

Mondulkiri

Mondulkiri is the eastern highlands: rolling hill country at 2,000 to 2,600 feet (600 to 800 m), pine and evergreen forest, waterfalls, and the homeland of the Bunong, one of Cambodia’s indigenous peoples. It is about seven hours by road from Phnom Penh, which is the price of admission and the reason it belongs in a twelve-day trip rather than a nine-day one.

The air is genuinely cooler here, roughly 10 F (6 C) below the plain, and evenings from December to February can need a layer, which no other part of Cambodia does.

What we walk.

• Bunong village trails around Sen Monorom. Half and full days through cashew and forest, with a guide from the community, ending at a waterfall. The cultural content is the point: swidden agriculture, spirit forest, and a way of managing land that predates the Khmer.
• The Seima protected forest. Full-day guided walks with a genuine chance of seeing black-shanked douc langurs and yellow-cheeked crested gibbons. Dawn starts, because the gibbons sing early and then go quiet.
• Bou Sra waterfall. Two drops, reachable by road, and worth the trip if you are already in the province.
• The elephant project near Sen Monorom. Retired animals, observed and walked with through forest rather than ridden. We do not book riding, anywhere, in any form, on any seat. A morning here is one of the best half days in the country and it is not a trek, so do not count it as one.

Season. November to April. December to February is the best of it. The wet months turn the red laterite roads to a surface that four-wheel drive vehicles struggle with, and September and October are the worst.

Which one, if you can only do one

Choose Mondulkiri if you want primates, cooler air, cultural depth with the Bunong, and a village base you can walk out from each day. It is the more forgiving of the two and it suits fit teenagers.

Choose the Cardamoms if you want to be properly out of contact, sleep in a hammock in the forest, and support a conservation project that is doing measurable work. It is wilder, harder and less comfortable.

Doing both means twelve days minimum and two long drives. It is the shape of our wild Cambodia route and it is a genuinely good trip for the right traveller.

Practicalities

Fitness. Regular walking at home, a tolerance for humidity, and no problem with a 5 or 6am start. No technical skill required anywhere.

Leeches. Real, harmless, and unpleasant if you are unprepared. Leech socks or gaiters from December onwards, and more in the shoulder months. They are the single most common thing travellers wish they had brought.

Footwear. Boots that drain, not boots that keep water out. You will be crossing streams.

Insects and health. Repellent morning and evening, dengue is present, and a travel clinic conversation before you fly is sensible. There are no hospitals near either area, which is a real consideration.

Unexploded ordnance. A genuine issue in a small number of rural border areas. Stay on marked paths and go with local guides, which is the rule everywhere in the Cambodian countryside.

What it costs. Community treks are inexpensive, typically $30 to $60 a person a day including guide, food and a homestay. The tented camps are a different order, several hundred dollars a night, and part of that funds patrolling. Our cost article sets out how those days sit inside a whole-trip budget.

Guides. Community guides at Chi Phat and Bunong guides in Mondulkiri know the forest and will not always have strong English. On routes where the explanation matters, we send a second guide who does, rather than pretending the problem does not exist.

Plan this trip

Tell us how much walking you want and how much comfort you are willing to trade for it, and a Cambodia specialist will build the forest days into a route that still works. Free first outline, no obligation.

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Keep reading

• Wild Cambodia, 12 days
• Cambodia, the complete guide to planning your trip
• Cambodia beyond Angkor: Battambang, Kampot and the coast
• Cambodia month by month
• What does a trip to Cambodia cost?
• All our Cambodia trips

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