On our second day in Mondulkiri we visited the newly famous Coffee Plantation Resort - a three-hectare coffee farm about 2km from Sen Monorom. This place exported five tonnes of coffee beans to Vietnam and South Korea in 2010 and the price of unground beans rose by about 15 percent since last year. The coffee growing industry is still very new to Cambodia, but Mondulkiri coffee is definitely something to look out for. This is a GREAT find with amazing coffee that even a tea drinker like myself can love.
In addition to coffee, the plantation also has pepper beans (ground pepper), banana`s, pineapple, papaya, and a whole wack of other things I can`t really remember right now.
We also visited the beautiful Bou Sra Waterfall. Bou Sra is one of the largest and most impressive waterfalls in Cambodia. It's top level is around 10m in height, and the lower level drops down 25m to the gorge. If you look at pictures of what this waterfall normally looks like, you might notice there is double the amount of water!!!!
There is no real way to get down to the bottom of the second level. Because there was much more water then usual, this was about as close as we could get to the bottom level.
The locals camped out along the water all day with their packed lunches and boxes of Angkor beer. Some of them swam in the current between the top and bottom waterfalls. It was fun to watch them swim and fool around under the top waterfall but if Im being honest I was slightly scared for them. We brought our bathing suits because it is possible to safely swim (even according to North American standards) but the water was just too powerful because of all the monsoon rain. Cambodians have no fear!
Mondulkiri is a beautiful place with very few tourists. It was amazing to see the natural and raw beautiful of Cambodia, smell the fresh jungle air, and feel a cool and clean breeze.
The next morning we hopped back on our bus and headed back to Phnom Penh. Another fact I have learned about Cambodians - they get motion sickness like crazy! I would guess that about 10% of the people on the bus were vomiting. I assume this is because most of Cambodians are so used to riding on moto's so riding inside a vehicle is so foreign to them. Thank goodness for window's and tiger balm to cover up the smell!
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