Chambok Ecotourism Site

Chambok ecotourism site is just nest to the Kirirom National Park. Be prepared for some exercise about 4 kilometers trek, interaction with local villagers, and discovery of Cambodia’s unique natural biodiversity, visitors will enjoys with other activities such as: hiking, ox-cart riding, renting bicycle, picnicking, bird watching, bathing at the stream and the waterfall, and visiting a bat-cave. Furthermore, visitors can possibly have a lunch in the villager’s house prepared by local women, including fruit and coconut at the waterfall.

Ecotourism, Asia’s new buzzword, seems at first glance to be the ideal way to ‘save the forest’, although without the support of local communities and a constant stream of visitors, ecotourism remains a pipedream. Phnom Penh based NGO Khmer Community Development (KCD) think they have found the ideal balance.
Phnom Penh based NGO Khmer Community Development (KCD) think they have found the ideal balance.

Chambok Eco-tourism Resort, around 70km from Phnom Penh in Kampong Spue province, is just a few kilometres away from Kirirom Hillside resort. But while Kirirom is an upscale luxury retreat, Chambok is successful and sustainable community project. Unlike many similar schemes, Chambok is run with definite and realistic aims in mind – conservation that benefits local communities through tourism. “Ecotourism is very important for community development,” explained Chan Sokha, KCD’s director. “Chambok is managed by the community, but benefits from it. The project supports families and the community.”

To raise awareness, KCD offers training for would-be guides at $3 per day. The training is popular; around twenty students usually take up the offer. KCD also uses Cambodian volunteers as the unpaid positions are a cheap way to recruit hardworking staff and provide a chance for the unemployed to gain experience and practice speaking English. Twenty-two year-old volunteer Cheam Piseth said “improving language” was his primary concern, though he could easily parrot the ‘NGOese’ associated with the project.

“It’s a project to facilitate commitment to empowerment and prevent deforestation,” Piseth said before talking a long breath. “Sorry about my English,” he added.
The monthly Sunday tour bus, full of eager, bright-eyed urbanites, left at 6.30am on a two hour odyssey of karaoke and high jinks, the mood steadily lightening as the city faded into fields.

Local children handed out elaborate floral crowns upon arrival, much to everyone’s delight; drab city dwellers metamorphosing into children of nature with many a giggle and squeal. An obligatory group photo, that cornerstone of every Cambodian day trip, was taken for posterity.
“It is three kilometres to the third waterfall,” said Piseth, appointed to be translator to the sole foreigner. “It’s the best – forty metres tall. I don’t like the waste [leaves] in the water though.”

Building a trail linking waterfalls to the main entrance is practical, as waterfalls need almost no infrastructure and are attractive to Cambodians, having had a long history as meeting places, washing pools, and sacred sites. Using existing attitudes in practical strategies is an elegantly simple solution; traditional spiritual beliefs can be used to promote the modern concept of conservation.

In the hamlet closest to Chambok a billboard shows a Tevarda (spirit) pleading with an axe-wielding villager not to cut down trees. Nearby, under the shade of spindly saplings, sits a modern concrete pagoda. Here, in addition to their role as venerated religious leaders and teachers, monks educate locals about the importance of conservation. Monks are ideally placed for this role, as their views are widely respected and Buddhist mendicants have strong links to the forest. Even the temple itself serves as a marker; cleared land on one side, forest on the other.

Other measures ensure the co-operation of visiting tourists. Bi-lingual painted signs on the main trail tell visitors to be respectful with simple messages that are easily understood; “Take only memories, only footprints,” one notice reads, “Buddha was born under a tree,” notes another. Local guides, hired from the nine villages that surround Chambok, ensure no-one strays from the path into what is still a dangerous wilderness.
“Anything can disturb wildlife,” said Alan Freesanges, advisor to KCD. “We must have a team of local guides. Our team is always changing and the guides are still developing knowledge.”

To prevent jealously, guides work in rotation so that every family has a chance to earn money. Homestays, the only accommodation available, are also rotated around the villages.

A wide path leads visiotrs to the Chambok Admin office, garishly painted with bright murals. A simple lunch of fried rice in banana leaves is handed out, another service which earns local villagers hard cash. The sandy path weaves on through bamboo groves and tangled secondary forest, still used for small-scale dry rice cultivation.

“Before, the local people used to burn the forest for charcoal,” explained Piseth. “Now they protect it.”
Trees grow tall and thick as the trail rises into the hills, gnarled vines hanging like sleeping serpents beneath the cool canopy. Rock steps, steep and slippery, prompt many to walk barefoot – only the guides seem to find the going easy. Eventually the waterfall peeks through the foliage, its frothing water tumbling like spilt sugar. After an hour’s walk, the relief is palpable; urbanites cool sore their feet in icy limpid pools set amongst moss bearded rocks.
“It is beautiful here,” said one visitor as the fall’s rainbow mist settled on her shoulders. “It is very important people go to natural resorts.”