Annual Staff Meeting – 7

Mondulkiri is home to several indigenous tribal groups and also hosts various forms of plant life not seen in most of the rest of the country. And then there were just scenes that caught my eye.

Along the highways in the mountains many slopes were covered with kudzu, the invasive Japanese plant that overruns and obliterates native vegetation. It’s in many places in the U.S. but I was surprised to see it here.
One area of the Angkor Forest grounds is planted in coffee trees.
Throughout the area were large plantations of pepper trees like these.
In many places along the highway there were rubber plantations with hundreds of thousands of rubber trees like these. Notice the dark cups for collecting rubber attached to the back of all these trees about a meter above ground.
Bamboo is everywhere in the area and this patch had been bent over by the strong winds in the hills.

These last shots are scenes that caught my attention.

The night we arrived at Angkor Forest this little pig was being roasted to be added to our dinner that evening.
As we leave an area each year, we always stop at the local market to buy regional specialties to take back to the folks in Phnom Penh. If you’re ever having 100 people or so over for dinner and need some wokked vegetables, they’ve got the woks!
If you want to add some meat to the vegetables in the wok, this Muslim shop owner will sell you some beef.