Photos courtesy of Antonio Graceffo

A young ranger led me to my room. It was a huge double room in a building which had obviously been a luxury hotel during the French colonial days. But now, it had fallen into serious disrepair and felt a bit more like a concrete bunker. There was electricity, the boy told me, but it wouldn't be on until six o'clock. There was also running water in the shower, but only cold. There was, however, a western style toilet.

The rangers had some food to sell me if I needed it, including dry noodles, coffee, water and coke. The food Thavrin had brought was enough for several days. I had a number of Snickers bars, cans of anchovies, two loaves of bread, Nutella, potted meat, coffee and hot chocolate.

The first priority was to shower and pick the leeches off of my body. It was actually cold on the mountaintop -- the first time I had experienced cold since coming to Cambodia. It was a refreshing change from the pervasive heat I had grown accustomed to.

After my brisk shower, I dressed. In town the night before, thank God, I had had the foresight to buy a long-sleeved sweatshirt. In my home, in Taiwan, it was cold enough in winter that we would have to wear a light jacket or sweater, especially on a motorcycle. But in Cambodia, it was always debilitatingly hot, even in winter. Before coming up here, I realized I no longer owned any long-sleeved garments.

I curled up on the bed with all of the covers and read by flashlight. It was nice. It had been nearly 18 months since my last outdoor adventure and it felt good to be an adventurer again. The one thing I really liked about these adventures was the solitude. I loved the satisfaction of being exhausted, of having washed and eaten, and just relaxing on the bed and reading.

If this were Thailand, or even Taiwan or China, I would know that tomorrow I would get up and do it again, and continue for a week or so. And, I would probably get a lot of reading done before it was over. But this was Cambodia and I was on a paid contract. This feeling would only last until two o'clock tomorrow when the driver would come for me. I wondered if my days of real adventure were over.

This pause gave me time to reflect. I was happy with the writing I had done on this trip. In fact, it was some of the best writing I had ever done. It was informed, deep and meaningful. But, I had also felt that I was being excluded from most of the experiences. In most of the stories in my book, I had been a spectator behind the camera, not in front where I was used to being. But as far as adventure went, with the exception of this Khmer Rouge death march up Bokor Mountain, this was the tamest adventure book I had ever done. It didn't compare to crossing the Taklamakan Desert by rickshaw, for example.

Something else nagged me. As much as I lamented not being on that type of adventure, I kind of liked eating, having money, an apartment and cable TV, and having all of these things on top of the four-star accommodations. Had I outgrown the sleeping-in-the-dirt style adventures? Did that matter? This new direction in my writing was certainly more saleable. These stories were getting picked up by magazines who never even looked at me before. But was that what I wanted? They liked my new stories because they sounded like every other travel writer's. Other than losing my temper with Veriak today, I hadn't done anything even remotely Antonio-esque.

I was fearing the future. Having complete sponsorship for a travel book had been my dream. But it was a double-edged sword. I was expected to write good things about Cambodia. But I generally didn't feel good things about Cambodia anymore. The personal side of this trip, the part that I had to delete from my articles, was that going through Cambodia was like when a couple having marital problems goes away together to save the relationship. This was my last-ditch effort to maintain the "marriage."

In my first book about Cambodia, Letters from the Penh, I had said such judgmental and insensitive things, picking on a people plagued with poverty and a lack of education. I was setting myself up to be on the wrong side of a David and Goliath confrontation where I was bound to lose in the court of public appeal.

This trip was about rediscovering the Khmers. And so far, it was working. Thavrin and Samban were two of the most intelligent and well-informed people I had ever worked with in any country. Variak and his younger brother, who I called Aun, had become easy friends. I had returned to my original verdict about Cambodia from a year and a half earlier, before I had become so jaded. The Khmers were good people trapped in a desperate situation. And, who are we to judge? We don't know how we would react if faced with the same levels of poverty and corruption.

The next morning, after I had eaten a huge breakfast from my pack, an older ranger came to take me on a tour of the grounds, which were constructed around a small but picturesque lake. Our first stop was at the old French casino. It was now overgrown and burned out, as it was slowly being reclaimed by the jungle. With very little glass left in the windows, the casino was a model of decadence in decline. It must have been good to be French back in the colonial era. Imagine the elegant parties they must have had, dancing on the then-manicured lawn, in the hot tropical night. And, I bet they had great coffee.

Inside the casino, the ballroom was immense with a huge fireplace in one wall. I am told that in all of Cambodia, there are no existing photos of what the casino looked like in its prime. They were all destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. There is, however, hope that the there may be some in France.

As a result, you have to use your imagination to create the opulent images of French colonial power. The walls, probably once covered in gilt and fashionable stucco, were now covered with moss and mold. From the second story balcony, there was a breathtaking view of the lush green valley which spread out for miles below. Across the complex was a lonely little Catholic Church. A mist, blowing in from the jungle, looked very eerie.

You can buy Antonio Graceffo's latest paperback, "The Desert of Death on Three Wheels," by clicking here.

The next stop was the old Catholic church, which was like a religious Dhien Bien Phu caught between the excesses of the colonial casino life and a changing political tide. Parallel to the Saturday night parties raging in the casino and the Sunday morning masses, said in the church, the unstoppable flow of history would eventually bring the empire to an end, and later, the country to its knees.

Inside of the church, I could still feel the faith of stone, sleeping, waiting... but waiting for what? Cambodia needs faith and prayer now. I wondered. The church was tiny, but so special and picturesque. The altar was made of stone, as was the basin for the holy water. What happened here? Who had worshipped here? Who was the priest?

The spiritual quiet of the holy granite was disrupted by the voluminous graffiti, the most of any building I had seen in Cambodia. Most of the slogans were written by Australian tourists. Would they do that to a church in their own country? One of them read So-and-so was here from West Samoa. As much as I hate to see any graffiti at all, West Samoans should be allowed to graffiti anything they want. There aren't too many of them, and even if they all came to Cambodia on the same day, it wouldn't amount to that much graffiti.

Outside the buildings, there were stone balconies built into the hilltop all around. From an observation point behind the church, I could trace with my eyes where the jungle gave way to a blue sea. A few lazy boats made their way along the coast, before disappearing into the mist.

If there was one thing the French knew, it was aesthetics. I could not have thought of a more beautiful place to build a retreat.

From the Catholic church, it was a short walk to the Buddhist temple, which was constructed of red brick. According to the head monk, the original temple was built in 1924, but had been closed during the Khmer Rouge time. This one had only reopened in 2000. The head monk told me that the Khmer Rouge had been here until 1980, but there were no more mines, thanks to the hard working people at CMAG (Cambodian Mine Action Group). When I asked what he had done during the Khmer Rouge time, his light-hearted answer was, "I was a farmer, like everyone else." After the liberation, he became an Ajan, a teacher of monks.

In the glory days of the empire, both temple and church were open. But now, only the temple survives. The French were long gone, but the Khmers live on. My guide, Luke Hon, was 41 years old. He had been a soldier from 1985 to 2000, when he became a ranger. He was now a group leader.

"We go out twice a month and stay one week in the station. It is a hard life. If we see illegal logging or poaching, we make arrests."

I asked him if anyone had ever been shot.

"Yes, but long ago. That doesn't happen as much now. These days, the poachers use traps. So, there is no one there when we discover them. But I have been shot at a lot."

Luke Hon told me about the training and funding from Wild Aid. Apparently, what I thought was a new hotel being constructed next to the building where I had slept was actually a new ranger station paid for by Wild Aid.

Back in my room, I was talking with Veriak's brother, who I called Aun; little brother. He was 19 and very excited to be a ranger following in his older brother's footsteps. I opened a candy bar for him and we talked like friends.

My Khmer was not good enough for interviews, but if a friend was kind and patient, we could communicate in Khmer well enough for me to get my stories. Aun said that he didn't have a girlfriend, but he liked Asian girls better than foreigners. Specifically, he said that he liked Chinese, Japanese and Khmer equally.

"I like Japanese girls best," I told him. "Because they are as beautiful as the other Asian women, but they have more money."

We both laughed.

Even at his young age and exceptional fitness, Aun complained about how difficult the ranger's life was. Out on patrol, they carried about 30 kgs of gear. This included food, water, an AK-47, magazine, 15 rounds, machete, GPS, maps and a camera. Each team was composed of three to five men. From the way he described his work, it sounded as if the modern ranger used his camera more often than his gun. According to Aun, they photographed everything when they stumbled on an abandoned logging camp or traps, for use as future evidence. With all of the training and hardship, a ranger could only look forward to a salary of $40 per month.

"Supervisors get $50." He told me cheerfully.

Since I had enough food for two lifetimes, I gave my surplus to Aun.

Cambodia has been the centre of all of the action in Southeast Asia, but more as an observer and victim than as a main actor. During the Vietnam conflict, the American military intervention in Cambodia was called Operation Sideshow. The name was fitting. Thirty years later, Cambodia is still the eternal Operation Sideshow, with giant neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam, gobbling up the headlines and the acreage. Cambodia is Southeast Asia's New Jersey, which Benjamin Franklin had once dubbed the candle lit at both ends. In this Indochina, where Chinese and Indian cultures met, Cambodia was destined to rise to mediocrity.

The motorcycle finally arrived to take me down the mountain, but the adventure was not yet over. Completely broken, the road was the worst I had ever seen in my life and in places it was very much like the Snufalufagus: You needed to use your imagination to see it.

I was thinking, "If this mountain were located at a tourist attraction in America, the personal injury lawyers would get rich."

Two miles an hour seemed like a breakneck speed. The motorcycle driver apologized for the lack of speed. "When I go alone, I can do it in an hour and a half." But with a passenger, it would take about two to two and half hours to cover the six or eight kilometres.

Hair-raising and scary, I wanted to get off and walk. I cursed the fact that I wasn't in a car. But when we met a car, a big SUV, I realized we were much better off. While we were in danger of coming off the bike, the SUV was in danger of going off the side. The road was just barely wide enough to accommodate the slow-crawling vehicles. But with the road washed out in places, due to an exceptionally heavy rainy season, there was often no room at all.

Finally, after I had aged several years, we came around a bend and suddenly saw the single most beautiful view of the ocean I had ever seen. The end was near. We were only a few hundred metres up now. And there below me was a peaceful valley, which ran to the ocean. Shades of blue and pale green blended with the mist, which was still rolling in from the sea. Once again, I wasn't sure where the sky ended and the ocean began.

We took a break so I could snap some photos. As I saddled up again, I thought I would be continuing on my journey to discover the Khmers. But the relaxed tour at the top of Bokor with Luke Hon and the quiet hours of friendly conversation I had spent in the company of Veriak's little brother had been some of the most pleasant experiences I had had in Cambodia. Who couldn't love these people and this country?

For a brief moment I envied Veriak and the other rangers who would get to remain in the camp, going on their rotations through the pristine, unspoiled jungle. But then I remembered the leeches. And I was glad that I was going to a hotel.

Part: 1, 2, 3, 4

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- The Monk from Brooklyn
- Bikes, Boats, and Boxing Gloves
- The Desert of Death on Three Wheels
- Adventures in Formosa