Cambodia: We had 14 days there. We spent about 5 days in Siem Reap seeing the various temples and birding. At one of the temples we had parakeets hanging around long enough to get great views of the color. People kept wandering by staring, trying to tell what we were doing looking up into the trees and not at the temple. We also had a day while in Siem Reap to bird and visit the floating villages on the large interior lake, Tonle Sap Lake. They have been having an unusually rainy season, which has extended into the ‘in-between’ season. The lake was very large with many islands of tree tops. I found the ground around the temples unique. I plan at least a couple of paintings hoping to catch that feel. The rest of the time in Cambodia we spent birding. We first went north, then east to the highlands, and finally west near the shoreline in the Gulf of Thailand.
Cambodia traffic is like and not-like that in Vietnam, much less hectic, though no noticeable traffic laws. People drove at leisurely paces. The driver would politely honk to let bikes, pedestrians, dogs, motor bikes, cars, and trucks know when they were passing. It was rather like biking in a park letting people know you were passing them on the left. If someone was turning left but first drove in the left lane right towards you, you just moved to veer around them. The roads are not in the best condition- those rains could wash a lot of the road away. And a lot of the roads are mud which could be as slick as ice to walk on or wet enough for the vehicle to become stuck. But the people take things calmly and no one appears to suffer road rage there.
We went to an area called Siema protected forest. The two kinds of endangered Ibis that can only be found in Cambodia roosted in the area. I found out how difficult it is to walk in rice fields trekking out to the roosting spots. We walked out in the day time and back after dark. It had been hard enough to walk when I could see. At least the mud is soft to land in.
We could not go to our next planned area where we could have seen the endangered fresh water dolphins due to the unexpected late rainfalls. We went to another national park. Since it was so green we were unable to see many birds. My attention was distracted from the birds anyway. I got some nice close up views of leeches as I kept pulling them off my clothing. David mentioned that the birds were up in the trees, not at my feet. We did see the Cambodian peafowl which is green while the Indian peafowl is blue. Cambodia has very few breeding pairs. We were pleased to see a couple.
Our next stop was near Bokor national park. It is a mountain area under development to grow the casino and become luxury villas; unfortunately, destroying the forest along the way. Again the rain keeping the leaves full and green meant fewer birds to be seen. We heard many more everywhere than we could see. We were unable to see the local partridge even though we kept trying at various times of the day. We did see the spectacular Giant Hornbill there on several occasions. They are impressive birds.