The Global Explorer: Followng my nose in Ratnakiri.

Cambodias Ratnakiri province-nicknamed the wild east-is an area one should not rush trough. Here one can do jungletrekking or visiting tribal communities. There are animist cemeteries, waterfalls an gem mines. And a slower pace and friendlier people than found many places.

Ban Lung-a small, unremarkable town-is where everything starts and ends. Here you will find a couple of bikerentals on the main drag near the market. Here are a bunch of touroperators ready to take your money and set up a trip. Smiling tours put me in contact with Yok, a more or less freelancing guide belonging to the Tompuon minority. He is currently recovering from a cobrabite to his leg and can't go trekking as he normally does. He has his own homestay in his village close to the beautiful Boeng Yeak Lom-a crater lake set amidst lush, green jungle. The perfect spot for a swim-but beware of the monkeys. They steal whatever can be stolen.

Villagevisits and villagehomestays was my main objective-and Yok had what I needed: the local know how-he is not just telling you about a culture-it is his own culture-with local variations. Second-he has a motorbike. Public transport? Unless you have weeks and weeks to save-forget it.

We headed out of Ban Lung in a northerly direction-taking small roads and cattletracks trough villages. There are no attractions in a formal sense of the word-but one see real life go by. People tending their fields. The old man weaving baskets. the travelling traders. herders. Herbal healers. One lady cook under the stilthouse. another process a buffaloskin. A young girl learns how to weave bamboomats. She is not too enthusiastic about it. Friendly chatting with people swinging in hammocks. You find evidence of the huntingculture: There are crossbows with poisoned arrows in most places. You find a good selections of different traps used to catch small prey. In one village i got to test fire a homemade airgun used for small prey hunting. The steel bullets originating from the market in Ban Lung. I could conclude it was powerful and accurate. Well done. The police would have had something to say about it, though.

And there are all those small, mysterious objects with no obvious use. Often they have something to do with the spiritworld. Every house have a small spirithouse. Most also have spiritcatchers-woven bamboobjects designed to catch the spirits. In many villages there are tree groves having a sacred status where you will find remains of offerings and a jungle of spiritcatchers. Outside a villagehome i saw a beam with leafs hanging on it. But they were not some herb to be sun dried. The residents concerned expressions became explained when I was told this is a warning to the outside world: "Sick people living here-stay away!"

In a communal house. Every village have one. It is an important place where meetings, ceremonies and celebrations take place.

A roadside eatery. Typical for those is a row of kettles with various foods-like curries or soups. One choose what one wants the most, and gets it served with rice.

A creaky, swinging suspensionbridge.

I flagged down this travelling snail vendor in a village. I got a big bag of snails together with a bundle of herbs and a bag of sauce for about a dollar.

Home-sweet home. A place with no locks, no electricity, no running water. Not even a toilet-whats need to be done is done in the surroundings-the pigs are exellent renovationworkers. The biggest "luxury" must be mosquito nets and loads of fresh air. What i really liked with sleeping here, was all the sounds and smells coming in from the surrounding forest at night.

After a million roadbumps, a ton of dust processed by my lungs and a number of dubious bridges we arrived at the first homestay in a kreung minority village far from everything. The house as simple as they comes: stilted platform with a wooden backwall and a metal roof. The home of a family. But improvement is coming up-the husband was out in the jungle gathering buildingmaterials for a new khmer style wooden house. This area see a veritable buildingboom these days. In a few years bamboo huts will be a rare sight. The wife was back home taking care of home and children. But she is not just anybody, my hostess in her twenties is actually the village chief. Here the position is not an inherited one-nor is it a permanent one. One have it as long as the villagers are happy with the chiefs performance. She initially got the job because she can read and write khmer-a very valuable asset in the villages. And she has kept it because she actually gets things done. When she talks, people listen. Even the elders. The latter being a real issue in this culture, where age give rank. My guide actually turned down a request to be a villagechief himself because he thought this would be a big problem in his own village.

Villagechief or not: water is needed from the well. Food must be cooked. The eldest daughter takes care of the first issue and returns with water somewhat more turbid than the water i usually drinks. Mama herself sit on her legs on the floor-besieged by hens and chickens-cutting vegetables and meat brought in by us. Dinner is followed by ricewine-villagestyle. Rice is kept in ceramic jars to ferment, and when it is drinkingtime one pour water into the same jar. Then the liquid is sucked up trough long straws. I was a bit concerned because i knew it would be a big volume to drink, and the water used was basically untreated riverwater.....but i got away with it as i luckily usually do. There is certain rules to this drinking here-one don't drink at the same time. First the grandmother drank. Then her daughter. Then i got my share-only that i was required to drink twice their amount. Then came my guide. Before the cycle started over again.

Cooking. It is sort of a lesson: When we go camping in the west-we often are armed with lot more tools than she has to go with.

He went to the neighbour-those with electricity. A carbattery-that is. He came back with a jar for tonight's drinking-selling at 10000 riel.

Boiling before fermenting. The first stage of the ricewineproduction

The second round. Grandma finished, my turn. I'm about to sacrifice a few drops of the ricewine to the ever present spirits. Doing it is a great plus and will be noted by the hosts. Failing to do it will not be commented-but it will be noted too.

A typical home in a slash and burn field.

Playtime in the river with self made boats.

A schoolbell.

A sacred bamboo groove at the edge of a village. Spiritcatchers are everywhere. It is that kind of place where you almost instinctively get very careful with your actions. The atmosphere is strange.

Huntingtraps.

A decorated house.

We looked for lunch. got invited by this merchant. Moments after-we were invited to a moving in party. a nearby house was just completed. That meant more food, more drink, and the need to get a present for the lucky house owner.

A crossbow with poisoned arrows.

A very intriguing element of the animist culture flourishing in Ratnakiri, are the graveyards. Most of them are off limits to outsiders, but there are a few that can be visited with a guide. The "NO TOUCH" rule applies. These places are like stepping into a very ancient world. A true nat geo sight. You find carved wooden statues. There are grave offerings-things the deceased used in this life. There are jaws from buffaloes and pigs sacrificed during the funeral ceremonies. I visited two cemeteries, and they were places with a special atmosphere. Like there was "something" being present. There were a couple of human representations there giving me the feeling of being watched....

The grave of a small child. Only when the dead child "reaches" an age when it is supposed to be able to take care of the animals, a more proper grave will be set up. At Kachon cemetery.

The grave of a woman, her householditems follow her to the other side.

Travelling the way i did in Ratnakiri, harbours the possibility of interesting coincidential adventures. While lunching with a family, we were told there was a healing ceremony about to start in the evening in a village in the area. They were actually busy treating a buffalo skin from a buffalo killed in another ceremony when we arrived. My guide knew people in that village, so we decided to go there and stay with them to see if we could attend the ceremony. It was going to be held for a woman that had been sick for a very long time, it was a sensitive occasion and no guarantee for us being allowed in. Yook managed to get hold of the relevant people-he was a bit nervous about it-apparently some of them were big guys in the local area. We got green light-with a very clear "no photo whatsoever" rule. The event started in the afternoon and would continue for almost 24 hours. Arriving, i was taken to a canvas sheltered area where the obviously sick woman were resting. Beside sat a white dressed elderly woman. She was swinging back and forth, chanting with a low, slow monotonous voice. Surrounding here were helpers taking care of herbs, incense, candles. One man accopagnied the chant with a ghostly sounding flute. Another used a drum. The whole extended family sat around the tent watching. And sometimes going away to eat. This was a obviously also used as a social event, the socializing taking place away from the ceremony itself. Tied to a bamboo post was a buffalo. Destined as a gift to the spirits the next day. From time to time men were circling around the nervous animal playing gongs-the shaman being quite particular about how that was done.

The skin of a sacrificed buffalo is processed. First it get divided into smaller pieces, then put over the fire in order to loosen the fur. Later it is used for food.

In the morning the spirits started to come to the shaman. She must have been rather exhausted at this point. And maybe she also was under influence of something. At one point she got obsessed by the spirit of a child. She started talking and laughing like a child-rolling around on the ground. A spooky moment. A little by little the ceremony faded away and people started to leave for work. Sadly the buffalo was not forgotten. Two of its legs were cut, then it was speared to death. Horrific!

The homestay in the ceremonyvillage in the Voen Sai area is worth mentioning. Basically a village shop doubling as the owners home-and a makeshift restaurant. It had heavy tables made from the crossection of huge trees, and heavy stools made of lenghts of trunks. Outside it a bamboo platform serving as a gatheringpoint. A couple of hours were spent there with locals and bottles with local hangover moonshine.

Ratnakiri means gem mountains. The soil in certain places is rich in precious and semiprecious stones, so I set out to check out the mining operations near Bokeo. It was situated in a rubber plantation-so it is dual use-rubber being harvested on top, gems harvested 20 meters below in shafts one meter wide with little air on the bottom. Digging is hard work-there is no sort of engine driven tools her. All is man powered, giving one another chance of feeling having been transported back in time. It is when one comes to places with no mechanical sound one suddenly realize how rare it is to be without that sound. There must have been close to 100 shafts, each one run by a family-or at least a group of close people-for trust reasons. It is not seen as very smart to dig for easily lured away fortunes with people you don't know intimately. Whole families are involved. Usually the stronger ones are down digging and shuffling. Often standing in water and mud with little air. Then there is one person hoisting the soil to the surface. Sifting trough the soil looking for precious material is often left to the children.

Above ground, the extraction of the valuable rubbertree sap.

In between the rubbertrees are the miningoperations

Hoisting up the soil, hoping for some bounty.

A new load to carefully check.

Restingtime.

Very much resting time.

From the mines the way went trough rubberplantations and maniokfields to my next homestay. The home of a motorcyclerepair man this time. And again-the distinction between home and business is a diffuse one. Afternoonsnack and tea was enjoyed between bikeparts, tools and waiting customers. The dinner is worth mentioning. My host suddenly left a bike for a while-then coming back with a bag with meat. Turned out he had used 10 dollars-not a small amount in rural Cambodia-to buy deer meat for dinner. It was prepared in a simple and delicious way: chopped into small pieces and marinated in a spicy sauce, then herbs were added. Finished. Deer sushi. But it did actually not feel like uncooked. With it we ate vegetables and drunk beer-loads of beer-that I got from the nearby shop. The beer was even chilly! It became one of those magical evenings-sitting in an environment totally different from home, with good food, enough to drink and chatting with strangers. being dry inside when the rain were hammering intensely on the metal roof for hours and the lightening flashing outside nonstop for the same amount of time.