On Saturday 1 February 2020 one of us was asked to buy dry food for a short camping trip. Charles DiBella, our mentor, was on his way to the land in Kampong Seila and would be there by the 3rd.
The list for four people and the first week:
- 45 cans of tuna
- 24 packets of instant noodles
- 5 kg of rice and 5 kg of oatmeal
- 1 kg of milk powder
- 3 small axes
- a football, a guitar, two power banks and a bike battery
We left Phnom Penh at 9:15 on 4 February. The drive took about four hours. We unloaded at the first spot we reached, which we still call the first landing, and met Charles there.
It was fire season. Almost every corner had burned, and there was no water nearby. We walked about 1.2 kilometres before we found a patch the fire had missed, close to the stream. We could hear water running over rocks, but there was no path down to it. That was the campground. Clearing the ground took about two hours.
On the third day we finished a path to the stream. We had bucket showers and used the stream water to cook and drink. We had no other choice, and it was not bad.
We ate four or five times a day, because there was little else to do with the food and a lot of work to make the camp liveable. Noodles with tuna, rice with tuna, tuna in the afternoon. Charles mostly ate oatmeal.
The plan was to stay one week, make sure things were all right, and go back to the city. It did not go to plan.
The account was first posted on Rithy's Telegram channel: part one, part two. See also Base camp, February 2020 and The stream below camp.