Photos courtesy of Antonio Graceffo

"So I'll just wait here then?" I shouted in the general direction of where I had last seen Ranger Veriak melting into the trees. "OK," I added, as if I had a choice. "Take your time."

According to Veriak, it had been six months since the Bokor Mountain rangers had hiked up this particular trail. Now, the way was completely overgrown and he often had to leave me alone while he went off looking for the trail.

Being left alone in the jungle, for even a few minutes, can be terrifying. The solitude is loud and your imagination runs away with you.

Remembering that Cambodia is still one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, I stood perfectly still, just to be safe. But then I remembered that if you stepped on a mine, it was already triggered, but wouldn't explode until you stepped off it. So, maybe I wasn't so safe after all. I swallowed my gum. Afraid to do anything that might upset my weight distribution, I was frozen like the Tin Man when Veriak returned.

"What are you doing?" he asked, perplexed.
"Oil can," I whispered.
"Oil can what?" he answered, in Khmer.
Had he seen The Wizard of Oz? He obviously knew the dialogue. It was yet one more mystery in Cambodia.

Veriak assured me, once again, that there had never been mines in this particular forest.

"And besides," he added, with his cheerful grin, "we already removed them all."

I was careful to step where he stepped.

We had been walking since 7:30 that morning. For the last several hours, I had been so exhausted that I wasn't having fun anymore. To keep from seeming too eager, I was careful to ask only once per hour, "Are we there yet?"

I glanced at my watch.
"How far to the top?"
"Three hours," he answered, for the third time. The first time had been four hours ago.
When we only had one hour left, for the second time, it started raining.

My guide on this quixotic adventure was Veriak, a 25-year-old anti-poaching ranger who protected the forest and animals in Bokor National Park. We had met at the ranger station that morning when Veriak was assigned to take me up the mountain. The fee had been $20, half of Veriak's monthly salary, so I imagine he was happy to have the opportunity to make some extra cash. Thavrin, the representative from my sponsor, Phnom Penh Tours, snapped a million pictures of us. I thought it was because Veriak looked so cool in his Vietnam-era army greens and his AK-47.

"These Asians and their cameras," I laughed.
But later, Thavrin told me "I wanted as many photos of that ranger as possible, in case you disappeared in the jungle."
"You mean you thought he might kill me?" I asked, naively.
"You are probably carrying his annual salary in your wallet," said Thavrin, gravely. "Life is cheap up here."

To his credit, Veriak didn't kill me. And, unless I greatly misread him, I believe we bonded as friends during our endless death march to Batan. But Thavrin had a point, and it was a reoccurring theme in Khmer society. The rangers were one of the better-paid public servants, most likely because some of their funding came from U.S. based NGO, Wild Aid. But, with soldiers earning $10 a month and police officers earning $20, how could anyone expect service from the government?

Seeing Veriak with his Vietnam surplus weapon and uniform, it was impossible not to think of the war and myself as an American soldier being lead through the jungle by local forces. Playing my part to the tee, I made all of the same mistakes the Americans made in Vietnam, except that I never believed Nixon.

Where Veriak moved silently, like an Indian on the hunt, I made more noise than a platoon of elephants. The last three or four months, my writing schedule had been so heavy that I wasn't boxing, so I was severely out of shape. Also, I had spent the last 18 months living in Phnom Penh, so I hadn't been in the jungle for a year and a half. Every minute I am in Phnom Penh, I grow weaker... every minute Veriak is in the jungle he grows stronger, I thought, quoting the film, Apocalypse Now.

Easy living had nearly destroyed me. I had lost my edge. Now, I had difficulty climbing over and under obstacles which Veriak cleared with ease. I couldn't lift my legs high enough to go over the top. And, I couldn't bend far enough to pass underneath. Another constant problem was my backpack. It got hooked on everything. It wasn't enough that I was weaker than Veriak, but I also needed, more stuff than him. It was a Buddhist lesson in minimalism. Veriak wore only a small fanny-pack, whereas I needed a day-bag. How out of practice I was even became evident in the way I packed. I took too much food and not enough water.

We would be hiking to the top of Bokor Mountain, where we would be sleeping at the ranger station overnight. According to Veriak, the trip should have taken four hours. So, I had planned one liter of water per hour, or four liters. But, what I hadn't reckoned with was that the four-hour figure had been at Veriak's normal pace. With me along, the trip wound up taking nearly nine hours. We were the original odd couple.

During the seven years that Veriak had been a ranger for the Cambodian conservation project, trained by Wild Aid, I had been sitting at a desk. But, even without the training, Veriak would still have known his way around these woods. He was born in the area, and the local people still had a real connection with the land.

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Before coming to Cambodia, I had interviewed Chris Clerenos, a former trainer for Wild Aid in Cambodia, who had learned his skills in the Forced Ranger, the US Marine Corps special-forces.

"One thing I didn't have to teach these guys was bush craft," said Chris. "They knew more about medicinal and edible pants than I would ever know. When we were patrolling through the jungle, they would stop and grab something to eat or cure an illness."

I had seen the same with hill tribes when I was living in a kickboxing camp in the jungle, in Thailand. The young boxers were being trained not only in fighting and Buddhism, but also in horsemanship, as they were being groomed to serve in the army's drug-interdiction force on the Myanmar border. They had been barefoot 90 per cent of their life, so boot camp was a school to teach them how to wear shoes. During Muay Thai practice, the boys would disappear into the jungle and come back with natural foods they had found. Where I needed copious amounts of gear to survive in the jungle, all they needed was a big machete for cutting food.

Veriak didn't even need a machete, just his AK-47. Along the way, he picked wild dragon fruit. The first batch was too sour. But later, he found some which he claimed was sweet. I had learned in the monastery that westerners just weren't capable of ingesting jungle fruit. It was too bitter and had a texture similar to mahogany. But Veriak ate with gusto. He filled his pack, so he could share with the others when we reached the ranger station.

The first part of the trip had been an easy, pleasant walk through the Cambodian countryside. Veriak stopped to ask a local boy about the path ahead. The boy was a textbook example of a culture in transition. He was wearing a sarong and a T-shirt, displaying a popular Korean cartoon character. He told us the road we wanted was under water.

So, we changed course, entering the forest under a canopy of green trees, following a landscape which sloped gently upwards. At this point it didn't feel like an adventure. Farmers driving ox carts smiled at the foreigner as we passed. But soon, the visible trail disappeared and we entered the jungle proper. The way became difficult. It was the rainy season, and rivers had sprung up where none existed before.

At our first water crossing Veriak tentatively set one foot way out in front, like a Polish mine detector.

"It's OK," he told me.

Veriak had almost no English, so we were speaking Khmer. Although not fluent, my Khmer was okay for normal conversation. And I felt we were getting to know each other. But I was frustrated because I couldn't ask deeper questions about his life as a ranger.

I stepped in the water beside him. We took one more step, and sank almost to our armpits in the smelly mud. Veriak and I laughed. Khmers love slapstick humour, especially when it is real.

Note to self: Put camera in backpack.

Part: 1, 2, 3, 4

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