CAMBODIA TRIP REPORT - ANGKOR WAT

February 2008

A pleasure trip to Cambodia, primarily to fulfil the life-long dream of visiting the temples of Angkor Wat, combined with some birdwatching, provided us with some great joys and a few frustrations.

We found it quite difficult to ‘get off the track’ as independent travellers in Cambodia and side trips to places like Kratie and Kampong Chom were long and slow. Once there, apart from hiring a 125cc motor scooter from the guy from the hotel front desk’s brother’s mate, there was very little transport infrastructure in place. The few well known sites like viewing the Irrawaddy Dolphins on the Mekong, or visiting the Bamboo Bridge were covered, but not ‘we want to go out in the countryside to look at birds’. Small boys with slingshots trailed behind us chatting as we walked, giving you an idea of the importance and0. popularity of birding tourism. The sturdy Honda Dream got us to a few great places though with lots of nice ricefield and diptercarp forest birds.

Arriving at Siem Reap by boat via Lake Tonle Sap, however, gave us the idea that things were going to improve, with Painted Stork, Asian Openbill, Indian Cormorant, Whiskered Tern, Grey-headed Fish Eagle and Common Kestrels greeting us. The ‘arrival procedures’ were via a plank onto the muddy river banks with our backpacks and tens of tuk-tuk drivers touting for business. You wouldn’t want to be too much older, less fit or carrying much more luggage. Siem Reap has everything you need and is extremely pleasant with good accommodation, restaurants, bars and of course the famous temples of Angkor Wat.

We’d organised some birding with Osmose for a day trip to the Prek Toal Bird Sanctuary on Lake Tonle Sap, and with the people at the Sam Veasna Centre (SVC) in Siem Reap.

An excellent ecotourism and conservation group, SVC was set up in 2003 in memory of a young pioneer of conservation initiatives in Cambodia, and who unfortunately died at 33 from malaria. Since 2004 the SVC has been developing activities to promote wildlife conservation in Cambodia, including training local guides in bird identification and encouraging remote villagers to value the wildlife through ecotourism projects and incentives to manage their land.

The SVC provides birding excursions around Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, to Tmatboey in the Northen Plains of Cambodia, to Ang Trapeang Thor Sarus crane Reserve and the Florican Grassland sites of Kompong Thom, with transport and English-speaking guides provided. We chose a ½ day birding excursion around the grounds of the Angkor Wat complex (which turned into a full day) and the 1 day tour to Ang Trapeang Thor (ATT).

Birding around the Angkor Wat was almost a surreal experience with some of the best forest we’d seen in Cambodia, and peaking through the canopy, glimpses of the towers of Angkor, the famous 10^th century temples of the Khmer Kingdom. Our guide for the day at Angkor Wat was Siphuon – an incredibly bright, intelligent, confident young woman who has been a temple guide for many years, and more recently trained as a birding guide. She was excellent – keen, observant and a good birder. She was a perfect choice for the day as she could interpret the temples and environs as well.

Starting at dawn at the Eastern Gate of Angkor Wat, we followed the moat seeing Lesser Whistling Duck, Cotton Pygmy Goose, Little Grebe. Chinese Pond Heron in the water, and along the edges of the moat produced Common Kingfsher, Black-naped Kingfisher, Grey Wagtail, Indian Cormorant and Olive-backed Pipit. We then turned in to the temple grounds walking north-east to the North Gate. The forest birds included Lineated Barbet, Coppersmith Barbet, Indian Roller, Plaintive Cuckoo, Oriental Cuckoo, Ashy Drongo, Ashy Minivet and more many more Bulbuls, Monarchs, Flycatchers, Drongo etc. Highlights of the session were Green-billed Malkoa, Oriental Pied Hornbill, Asian Barred Owlet, Hill Myna and Greater Racquet-tailed Drongo.

Asian Barred Owlet

Following on from Angkor Wat, we visited Ta Prohm, the sprawling temple still partly covered with huge figs and silk-cotton trees – much photographed, used in many movies, and very beautiful. The highlights of Ta Prohm were Alexandrina Parakeet and Red-breasted Parakeet in the huge figs and Blue Rock Thrush among the ruins. The afternoon, we spent just wandering through the temple complex, visiting Preah Khan and back to Angkor Wat. Siphuon is an excellent temple guide.

A great day, with a mixture of culture and birding, with 46 birds and all those beautiful temples. Highly recommended.

This a brief account of one of our outings during our 4 week birding and cultural foray into Cambodia.

We rarely pre-book any accommodation or outings when we travel although we did organise our days with SVC in advance. We found Cambodia very easy to operate in on a day to day basis – one just needs to be flexible and patient.

RULE # 1 when travelling in this part of the world.

No matter what your feelings are – Never show frustration or anger. It will get you absolutely no where fast.

Please feel free to contact us through this page for further information if planning to travel to Cambodia.

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