Areng Valley Cambodia

Areng Valley is one of the other rich resources of ecology and natural view. Areng is located in Thma bang district, Koh kong province, Kingdom of Cambodia. From Phnom Penh, visitors can travel by bus to koh kong province and continue about 32km to the district of Thma Bang.  From there, visitors must entering the valley consists of a steep 17-kilometre-long jungle road, mostly downhill to one commune called Thma Don Pov (Areng).

Appropriately, most action revolved around the Areng River, whether following it via trails, swimming, kayaking, bathing or taking a break on its shores. The river is shallow and impressively diverse. It transitions from clear sandy stretches to pebbled rapids and mossy patches strewn with trees. The waters teem with soft-shell turtles, Oriental Darter water birds, Kingfishers, and the endangered green and silver dragonfish. Gibbons can be heard howling in nearby trees. Areng is a sweet home of elephants and other rare animal species.

Kayaking takes you through calm waters surrounded by trees and sand banks covered with crocodile footprints and tail marks. You can occasionally spot a “blessed tree,” ordained by monks and wrapped in saffron-colored material. Visitors can search for the elusive Siamese crocodiles in Areng’s  lake. 

But the most spectacular scenery is discovered while mountain biking. Tight trails scattered with thick branches wind madly through jungles dense with trees. Narrow, flimsy bridges dot the rides, with one 30-metre-long crossing only three planks wide. Forests give way rutted paths that lead you across dusty fields of high reeds and past bored buffalo under pale sunset sky.

Camp is portable and differs each night. When not set up riverside, we camped at the abandoned village of Sre Khuanh, where residents were exiled under the Khmer Rouge. Today there is little evidence of life in the expanse of burnt fields that have replaced the town, but the surrounding mountains and large watering hole offer a stunning backdrop to the absence. Evenings were spent under starry skies, eerily quiet aside from the sounds of crackling fires and – perhaps too stereotypically – a strummed guitar. Dinners by firelight were accompanied with a hot cup of traditional, amber-coloured “medicine water” and followed by nights in mosquito-netted hammocks, with a nearby fire to combat the cold.

Throughout trips, visitors dine at local homes to make the logistics easier for guides and provide additional income for community members. All food is locally grown, which results in eclectic dishes like eel curry and peanut and lobster paste, as well as fish soups and unending piles of rice.

Villagers – the majority of whom are Khmer Daeum (Chong) ethnic minorities – have deep ties to the valley, with ancestral stories going back hundreds of years. They are overwhelmingly friendly and hospitable – and in a country where the majority of people are, it says something to stand out.

Locals seemed in equal parts pleased and amused that tourists would make the trek to their remote villages, and at their urging we attended a lively village wedding, a rice festival where monks received grain offerings, and a mid-day Chinese New Year feast replete with pork, noodles and rice wine. With no electricity or cell phone access, life seems reminiscent of a simpler time, down to the natural resin torches used to light homes in cool night. Disconnected from the outside world, you’re forced to slow down. Communicating has its challenges, though, as villagers’ dialect proved a stumbling block for even the most fluent Khmer speakers among us.