Everything is burning.

by Mike Richardson (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Cambodia

Our THIRD puncture did not occur near to a charming and peaceful village like the first two, but instead, the middle of the jungle. Two hours we had to wait for, and damn, there were a lot of bees. Like, an unreal amount of bees. They didn’t sting, but being (pun fully intended) covered in bees is not my favourite thing to do amid a six hour journey. When a man on a motorbike turned up, they fixed the puncture together and we were on our way. It was striking as we rode in, everything was burning. I later found out that there is a massive problem in the area with poachers burning the land to reduce cover for wildlife. One of the amazing things Ben does is go ranging with his local guys through the night to try and confiscate anything they can get from poachers. Underneath Ben and Sharon’s house is filled with about twenty chainsaws that they’ve managed to nab; on my first day there, Ben showed me a homemade gun that he’s grabbed the previous night; in addition to car batteries used for shock-fishing; and all other various equipment used by poachers. Once arrived at Be Treed, I met Sharon, Ben, and their two daughters. Sharon and Ben, despite hailing from western backgrounds, have completely integrated themselves in self-sustained jungle life, and their children were born into it. Sharon told me was how, about five years ago, they had rescued an orphaned baby Gibbon from a village, named Marley. They told me that she was a bit ‘attacky’, especially to people she didn’t know, and her speciality was attacking from behind. Naturally, having not spent a ton of time around apes, this freaked me out, in an ‘hahaha’ kind of way. The tree house that would be my home for the next few days was in Marley’s territory and I had visions of waking up at 4am to a very pissed off Gibbon. I dropped my bags off and met Ben to go for a walk through the bush. They have some cool old ruins on site, similar architecture to Ankor Wat. I saw a bunch of cool native critters, and photographed nothing. Some people think that not taking a photo helps keep things magical, a beautiful memory just for you. It’s a shame my memory is terrible and all the wildlife I remember seeing has merged into one VERY generic bird. Skip a few hours, and I’m tucked in bed. I say tucked, but that’s really just a turn of phrase here. What I really mean is: I’m star-fished, in my pants, on top of the covers, sweating my nuts off. The roof of the treehouse is made of metal, and every time a leaf/seedpod/branch drops from the tree it makes a sound, that to my ears, is exactly how a six-foot, knife wielding, demon gibbon called Marley would sound like on her way to eat me. I ‘slept’ cuddling a broom, with a slingshot in hand, and a few rocks in the bed for good measure. I wandered down to Sharon and Ben’s house the following morning after a wonderful night of no sleep. Sharon was cooking some breakfast, and low and behold, Marley was chilling there. Not a six-foot, knife wielding, demon gibbon, but a beauty. She definitely had a go at sneaking up behind me and took a little swing once - but damn, it was just too awesome to eat breakfast with a Gibbon. She’d do a hilarious routine of pretending to not pay interest in me, then when I would look away, she’d try and get closer. If I turned back, she would immediately avert her gaze as if nothing had transpired. I went on another couple of epic walks during my stay, which really hit home on how much of the forest was on fire. It was heartbreaking to see Marley roving around in her habitat with her boyfriend and playing with monkeys; knowing that so much of that habitat is dead and ash. The small comfort was knowing how much worse it would be without Ben, Sharon and their unrelenting conservation effort.