Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
atively egalitarian; but by 2007, after more than a decade of Hunsenomics, the richest 10
percent of the population owned 64 percent of the land and the top 1 percent an estimated
45 percent of households owning less than a hectare—an amount that barely allows farm-
small landowners into a landless working class, laboring on plantations and garment fact-
ory floors.
The social effects are particularly acute in Ratanakkiri, home to a large population of
ethnic minority peoples. The province—its name means “mountain of gems”—sits at the
fulcrum of Indochina, where Virachey's dense Dragon's Tail tapers off into the upland
wilds of the country's extreme northeast. For decades war and revolution conspired to
keep Ratanakkiri wild and isolated. In the 1960s senior Khmer Rouge leaders plotted their
revolution from bases deep in its jungle; later, US pilots banked over green jungles and
dropped their payloads on hidden Viet Cong supply trails. Until recently, Ratanakkiri re-
mained nearly untouched by the outside world. Only with the coming of peace and stabil-
ity have new roads opened up the northeast, exposing this region of waterfalls, mountain
spirits, and tribal peoples to the hurricane force of development.
When Pierre-Yves Clais first saw Ratanakkiri in 1992, at the start of his ten-month
stint of military service in the French paratroopers, the province was still covered in thick
jungle. Clais had ended up in Cambodia by chance. When he started his service, he hoped
for a posting to Francophone West Africa, the backyard of the old colonial empire. In-
stead he found himself in the backwoods of Cambodia's northeast, wearing the light-blue
helmet of the UNTAC military force. In support of the UN mission, he patrolled a wild
land that had barely changed for hundreds of years. Leopard spots of Khmer Rouge res-
istance were still scattered here and there in the northeast, much of which remained in-
accessible by road. To reach the isolated provincial capital, Banlung, it was safer—and
more comfortable—to catch one of the Soviet-era Antonov 24 turboprops that skidded
down every few days on a dusty landing strip in the center of town.
After being discharged in early 1993, Clais returned to Cambodia as a travel writer and
tour guide, taking visitors on treks and dirt-bike explorations in every corner of the coun-
try. But he kept returning to Cambodia's Wild East, magnetized by the rugged life and
the mystery of Ratanakkiri's minority peoples. “It reminded me of my army days, when
I could wear the same military fatigues, be dirty, talk dirty,” Clais recalled. Eventually he
settled in Banlung, where he opened the Terres Rouges Lodge in 1998. “I was living all
my childhood dreams,” said Clais. “I'd always been a fan of the Apaches, and I saw the
same sorts of people over there—wild tribes living in the forest, making these wonderful
totems, that were totally forgotten.”
