The rolling hills of Ratanakiri

The young head monk and author (I'm wearing trousers) at Wat Eisey Patamak

The green rolling hills and wooded forests of Ratanakiri, from Phnom Svay

A visit to the pagoda of Wat Eisey Patamak and Phnom Svay just a kilometre or two from the town center of Ban Lung, will give you some gorgeous views across the green and verdant hills of Ratanakiri, in northeast Cambodia. It was the final stop on our trip out to Lumphat and a nice way to end the day. The five metre in length reclining Buddha, a replacement for one destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, at the top of the hill was the playground of some youngsters and the paintings above the Buddha looked old and worn but were actually dated from 1993. The head monk at the pagoda - also known as Wat Aran - which was undergoing some repairs, spoke excellent English and was remarkably young at 28 years old to be a head monk.

The reclining Buddha at the very top of Phnom Svay and children playing games

These Buddhist wall paintings look old but are from the early 1990s