Into the unknown

My blog posts will lessen considerably next week as from tomorrow I'm heading off for another adventure, this time into the heavily-forested and gold-rich area of Phnom Chi in the far eastern corner of Kompong Thom province. Hot on the heels of my Mondulkiri bicycle nightmare, this trip is essentially 'back to my roots' and on the hunt for ancient Angkorean, or even earlier, prasats (temples) with my longtime adventure companion Sokhom and another pal from Kompong Thom, Cristiano. The latter has been working in the province for the last few years and has been documenting all of the archaeological sites he can find, which has already topped no less than 400. This man is a serious temple-hunter. As a result of his enquiries, he's established there's a real possibility of a series of temple sites in the Phnom Chi area that so far haven't been identified or visited by anyone. One site is already known and that's Prasat Trapeang Preus (or Pros), which is three brick edifices in the forest near to Phnom Chi. Jim from the California 2 bar in Phnom Penh has reported on his visit there in the Bayon Pearnik a while ago. We will certainly visit that site but we hope to uncover a few of our own on the way. I know of another large laterite and brick temple group called Banteay Siam a few kilometres from Phnom Chi and the word from villagers nearby is that other sites exist too.

Phnom Chi is better known for its gold deposits and the active goldmining concessions on Phnom Chi mountain itself and in Snang An a few kilometres away. Phnom Chi lies approximately 100 kms east-northeast of Kompong Thom city but we're expecting the road to the area to be no more than a track. We will be going on motos and camping overnight for a few nights, wherever we can find a suitable location. This is temple-hunting at its most basic. Phnom Chi gold has been known about for a long time though all mining activity - effectively it was done by local farmers using a straightforward panning technique - was stopped during the civil war of the '70s and resumed in the '80s despite the area being under Khmer Rouge control. Locals paid taxes to the KR to mine the deposits. After the government sent the army into supervise the area, the miners merely switched the payment of taxes to the military and mining activity has boomed ever since. Independent mining is now banned in the area, the concession has been granted to a locally-owned company, who in turn provide a basic wage of around $2 per day with three meals to the workers who mine the ore in shaft-mining to a depth of fifteen metres. Acid and cyanide is used to extract the gold from the mineral ore though this led to large-scale cyanide poisoning in the area and in nearby Stung Chinit River a few years ago. Malaria is also prevalent in the heavily-forested area, so I'm already asking myself, "why am I going?" The thrill of discovery and to see another remote part of the country are the main attractions, though nothing is guaranteed. My fingers are crossed. If I find a lost city in the jungle, I'll let you know.