Checking the camera traps

Last night I went on a bit of a 'jolly' up the mountain, to bring back the camera traps that had been up there for a couple of weeks since the last check. Actually it was more like Alistair went up to get the camera traps, and I tagged along. We walked on and on until it was just dark, then stopped for some dinner...

Fried rice and cans of coke by torchlight in the forest

Alistair confidently proclaimed that this time he would remember where he'd put the camera traps. After letting him bash around in the forest for a while I handed him the GPS, which he accepted with a wry acknowledgement that he had no idea where the bloody things were. At least, if we can't find them then local people can't either and therefore can't steal them.

Found it! Now where's the key for the padlock?

We finally arrived back at home at around 10pm, and immediately put the SD card into my laptop to check out the hundreds of photos that had been taken when the motion sensors were triggered. Lots and lots of photos of seemingly nothing, the wind moving some leaves or something. Quite a few Siamese firebacks (a kind of pheasant), jungle fowl, mouse deer, lots of porcupines, and for the first time wild pig.

I don't have the pictures from last night, but here is a selection of some other camera trap shots from some of the conservation NGOs working here in Cambodia:

Porcupines (photo Frontier-Cambodia)

Common palm civets (photo Frontier-Cambodia)

Gaur (photo Frontier-Cambodia)

Mongoose (photo Frontier-Cambodia)

Muntjac (photo WCS-Cambodia)

Banteng (photo WCS-Cambodia)

Smooth-coated otter (photo WCS-Cambodia)

Sambar deer (photo WCS-Cambodia)

Sun bear (photo Frontier-Cambodia)

Asian elephant (photo WCS-Cambodia)

Siem Reap relief

A night in Siem Reap, hurrah! After four weeks out of town living with just a few other people who staff the wildlife rescue centre, heading into the forest everyday, generator being switched off at 9:00 each night, it was definitely time for a break. So I grabbed a tuktuk and headed for town. Here are some snaps I took along the way:

 

Typical Cambodian house in the countryside

My study site mountain in profile. There be turtles up there in the clouds...

I stayed at my friend Hak's new guesthouse, Hak's House. Great to see him progress into his own business and be doing so well, last year he was managing another guesthouse and now he has his own - and he's only 24!

I spent the day wandering about town, picking up things in the markets, had a massage, sat in a cafe and read a book. Generally switched off and had a break...

 

All topped off with $2 dinner of fish amok curry at the cheapie food stalls...

 

...followed by meeting some friends for beers at an expat bar to watch the Wimbledon Men's Final. This is an event that seems to see me in unusual places from year to year. In 2008 I watched the match in a lodge in Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal with a bunch of British schoolkids. In 2009 I watched it in a locked holding room in Heathrow airport with a bunch of asylum seekers. In 2010 I watched it in a bar in Phnom Penh with other expat colleagues, and this year it was a similar scene but in Siem Reap. 

I wonder where I'll be for it next year?