Work has begun on the latest incarnation of the strikingly-designed Hanuman Travel Collection.
Hanuman Travel Collection
Following on the success of the existing Hanuman Travel Collection, new developments in the next edition will include the launch of Myanmar as a new destination, as well as a new Hanuman Travel Collection DVD and associated online video promotion.
The Hanuman Travel Collection features inspirational ideas, imaginative itineraries and unique experiences, together with selected properties and cruises in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Please note that this is on an invitation-only basis, so we are only targeting the most exclusive and unique properties in the region. To view the existing Travel Collection online, please visit http://www.hanuman.travel/pdf/HNM-brochure-web.pdf.
The Hanuman Travel Collection DVD will include preferred hotels, unique experiences and selected destinations. Produced by sister company Hanuman Films (http://www.hanumanfilms.com/), the production team that brought TombRaider to the temples of Angkor, guided Gordon Ramsay, Charley Boorman and Samantha Brown around Cambodia, and organized the Top Gear Vietnam Special for Jeremy Clarkson and Co, this will be the most professional destination DVD seen in the Mekong region to date. Hanuman Films has worked on more than 100 international productions in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia during more than a decade of film-making. Hanuman is an official vendor for the BBC, the world’s largest broadcasting company, and has countless credits with National Geographic, Discovery, Travel Channel and more.
The Royal Ploughing Ceremony takes place annually in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, in which the royal oxen determine the fate of the forthcoming harvest.
Known as Chat Preah Nengkal in the Khmer language, it takes place in front of the National Museum in early May. Led by a member of the royal family, the ceremony sees the oxen presented with a series of bowls of crops and pulses. The crops they eat are predicted to have a bountiful harvest and those they ignore will have a low yield. Watch a video of this year’s Royal Ploughing Ceremony on Hanuman Travel TV’s Youtube channel. The event took place on Thursday 10 May 2012 and was filmed by Robin Waldman of Hanuman Films.
The newest book on Cambodia from Hanuman’s very own product team.
The latest Lonely Planet Cambodia guidebook is due out next month though we already have a pristine copy in the Hanuman office. In fact our copy is still warm from the printing press. The reason being is that our own Nick Ray is the coordinating author, so he gets first dibs. The Cambodia edition comes out every two years, so this one has the most up-to-date information on hotels, restaurants, bars, borders and transport that you can lay your hands on. It’s a new-look book as Lonely Planet have changed their design template, with a lot more colour throughout, new sections such as If You Like and Regions At A Glance, as well as the old favourites like Top 10 Experiences and their extensive coverage of Angkor. The size and shape of the book remain the same, there are sixteen pages less this time around and an increase of a dollar in price to US$23.99. Nevertheless, it beats all its competitors hands-down for ease of reference and coverage of the whole country, including a new six-page feature on the islands off the south coast. Nick and Greg Bloom are the two writers responsible for the latest edition of what is by a country mile, the most popular guidebook on Cambodia.
Don’t forget to get a copy of To Cambodia With Love, published by ThingsAsian Press and compiled and edited by Hanuman’s very own Andy Brouwer. This labour of love was launched in January 2011. From wilderness hikes in the Cardamom Mountains to scenic picnics overlooking Angkor Wat, discover the secrets of savvy expatriates, seasoned travelers, and inspired locals. With its unique insights into dining, shopping, sightseeing, and culture, To Cambodia With Love is a one-of-a-kind guide for the passionate traveler. When it comes to Cambodia, no one knows it better than the sixty contributors to To Cambodia With Love, personally selected by Andy. Sharing more than 120 personal stories in their own words, they will introduce you to some of the country’s most memorable experiences. Like the Lonely Planet Cambodia guidebook, To Cambodia With Love is available from bookstores and online. We would recommend both, but of course we are biased.
Introducing The Three Kingdoms itinerary, offering the best of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.
Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon
Taking advantage of improved flight connections in the region, our Three Kingdoms trip begins with a journey to Myanmar. Starting with the shimmering spires of Shwedagon Paya in Yangon, the route continues to the ancient Burmese capital of Bagan, where more than 4000 stupas punctuate the skyline amid dramatic scenery. The historic surrounds of Mandalay and the dazzling floating gardens of Inle Lake await us before we return to Yangon for our flight to Cambodia. We fly into Siem Reap, the perfect base for the fabled temples of Cambodia’s Angkor, where we encounter the jungle ruins of Ta Prohm and the majesty of Angkor Wat in the first light of the day, as well as the intricate carvings of Banteay Srei and the mysterious faces of the Bayon. We also include a lifestyle visit to the floating villages of the Tonle Sap. The living, breathing museum that is the World Heritage city of Luang Prabang welcomes us, where we admire the curves of Wat Xieng Thong, travel upriver to discover the Buddhas of the Pak Ou Caves and swim in the turquoise waters of the Kuang Si Falls. The Three Kingdoms is a journey to the heart of the Mekong region, to an Asia of old that seems a world away from the shopping malls of Singapore and Bangkok.
Hanuman is pleased to announce the launch of a new 14 day/13 night Wild Cambodia itinerary bringing the best of the kingdom’s elusive wildlife to the adventurous visitor.
Elephant Valley Project
Our new Wild Cambodia itinerary is geared towards spotting Cambodia’s rare animals and birdlife in their natural habitat. This two-week trip starts in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and includes the chance to be a Sun Bear keeper for the day at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre. The itinerary then heads east to the wilds of Cambodia and a chance to walk with the herd at Elephant Valley Project. There is also the chance to spot primates in the wild on a douc langur trek in the Seima Protected Forest. Swinging west to Kratie, there is time to view rare freshwater dolphins in the Mekong River before continuing through Sambor Prei Kuk and Kompong Thom to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor. Wildlife highlights here include the sarus cranes of Ang Trapeang Thmor and the incredible concentration of rare water birds in Prek Toal Biosphere. As well as all the leading temples, there is also time for a jungle trek to Kbal Spean and the chance to visit the Angkor Centre for the Conservation of Biodiversity (ACCB). For nature enthusiasts or families with older children, this is a great itinerary showcasing the best of Cambodia’s wildlife. Wild Laos and Wild Vietnam itineraries will follow very soon, so please watch this space.
Anlong Pring Bird Sanctuary in Kompong Trach, Kampot Province, is home to nearly 300 sarus cranes.
The sarus crane is a striking bird. One of the world’s largest birds in full flight, the bright red head is in stark contrast to the grey plumage. Anlong Pring Bird Sanctuary is an official Important Bird Area (IBA) and home to about 30% of the world’s sarus cranes. The wet grasslands in this area draw the birds to the area from mid-November until early May when they migrate to northern Cambodia. The sarus crane is a magnificent bird and seeing these creatures in their natural habitat or in flight is a rare privilege. The sanctuary is about 35km from Kep and takes about one hour to reach. This will an impressive half-day module to add to Kep and Kampot programmes for the coming high season, as it is more accessible than Ang Trapeang Thmor in Banteay Meanchey, the other popular sarus crane spotting area about 100km from Siem Reap.
The atmospheric old French hill station of Bokor is once again open and accessible, but is it to everyone’s taste?
Thansur Bokor Highland Resort
Last weekend, we ventured up to the summit of Bokor, a former French hill station and now a national park. The area is now under development by the Sokimex Group and the new Thansur Bokor Highland Resort recently opened its doors over Khmer New Year. The first and dramatic change you notice when travelling to Bokor is the incredible new access road from Kampot. We first visited Bokor on trail bikes in April 1998 when the road was more an overgrown path with grasses and creepers obscuring the route. Fast forward 14 years and it is one of the best highways in Cambodia and it takes just 45 minutes to reach the summit. The road has been painstakingly built with professional drainage, new bridges and landslide protection.
Continuing along the plateau, the road eventually winds its way to the new Thansur Bokor Highland Resort which dominates its surrounds in the heart of the old French-era Bokor ruins. Modern Asian in style, it somehow feels at odds with the natural surrounds. The masterplan includes an eventual total of 412 rooms, so it can hardly be called intimate, and there is a large casino dominating the lobby building. Judging by the majority of customers, the hotel hopes to attract Cambodians, Vietnamese and other Asian customers but is not really aimed at the average Western visitor.
Following the road around to old Catholic church and the shell of the Bokor Palace Hotel, it still looks eerily abandoned on a quiet day, but at weekends it is very overcrowded and litter is everywhere. The old hotel is under renovation and it looks like the integrity of the old structure will be preserved. However, a nearby striking ruin that once looked like a Le Corbusier-influenced residence has been restored as a garish villa with little attention to detail. Other structures such as the old post office remain abandoned and derelict. The views from the plateau edge remain breathtaking when the mist is not rolling in, but with 1000 or more construction workers and busloads of local and regional tourists, it seems the atmosphere of old is forever gone.
So should visitors make the trip? It’s a difficult call. It’s more accessible than ever and the views are still as incredible as they always were, but the ghost town feel is history. It is certainly best avoided at the weekend, when it is extremely overcrowded, but it might be of interest to some on a quieter weekday. Until some eco-friendly treks are established far from the madding crowds that throng the new casino, it may be best avoided as there are so many other interesting sights in the Kampot area.
The Rose of Bokor is now a thorny issue for exclusive travel planners in Cambodia.
Hanuman takes a peek at two boutique hotel offerings in Kampot
Following in the footsteps of Battambang, the boutique hotel scene in Kampot is fast developing. La Java Bleue was one of the first to open and offers three rooms in Khmer, Chinese and French style, making it one of the more intimate boutique hotels in town. The Khmer room has a wonderful corner setting with a panorama of louvre shuttered French windows. Upstairs, the Chinese room is a romantic hideaway in the loft with a private rooftop balcony. Rates include breakfast in the small café downstairs. The same owners are currently developing La Soleil d’Or, a second restored colonial building in the same Old Market district. With just four rooms and a small restaurant, this will add more rooms to the Java Bleue portfolio.
The Columns is a lovingly restored strip of old French shophouses in the Old Market district. Originally opened as a 9-room property in November 2011, the hotel will close its doors this week to undergo an extension in readiness of high season. Two more colonial-era buildings will be renovated bringing the total number of rooms to 17 from 1 November 2012. The renovation will also see an extended lobby and a small coffee shop for breakfast, snacks and drinks. The friendly owners are amenable to group bookings, ensuring this will likely be the leading boutique hotel in Kampot into 2013.
Andy Brouwer set off for the jungles of Ratanakiri in northeast Cambodia on a gibbon-spotting trip. Here’s what he found.
Wildlife in Cambodia is becoming increasingly scarce, so it’s great news when a wildlife agency discovers a new population they didn’t know existed. One such discovery is the endangered gibbons of Ratanakiri, the northern buffed-cheeked crested gibbons to be precise, about 1,500 of them, and under the umbrella of Conservation International, an exciting opportunity now exists to see them in their natural habitat. Cue my recent visit to Banlung in Cambodia’s northeast province of Ratanakiri. My destination was the Veun Sai-Siem Pang Conservation Area where a small group of habituated gibbons have been the subject of research for the past couple of years. Habituated means they don’t run away from humans, which makes early morning viewing a real possibility. To reach their stretch of evergreen jungle required a 4WD trip of 35kms, a boat ride along the Sesan River and then a two-hour bicycle ride punctuated by a lunch stop before arriving at the ranger-research station. The gibbons are another 2kms away but the best time to see them is around dawn, so we took an hour-long night-time(8pm) hike through the forest with head-lamps in the hope of spotting pygmy-loris or civet, though we were out of luck this time around.
The next morning, it was a 4am departure from camp for the 2km walk to the home of the gibbons and right on cue, as we arrived, their mesmerizing whooping call literally took the roof off the forest in front of us. A few steps under the canopy and the family of four were directly above us, playing, resting, fighting, eating, with the male and female (who is beige in colour) sending their piercing call across the forest canopy. It was a magical moment. After twenty minutes, the local guide told us to be ready to move, and again on cue, the family (dad, mum, a juvenile and a minor, all black in colour except mum) began swinging from tree to tree, high over our heads but easy enough to spot, as we followed our expert tracker who knew instinctively which direction the family was heading. Every few minutes we would pause on the forest floor as the family stopped to eat and inspect their own patch of forest.
It was tough-going on the forest floor, there is no path to follow but our group size (no more than six at a time to limit the impact on the gibbons) means it’s straightforward enough to follow the guide and to keep a look-out for the gibbons overhead. It got a bit tense when the family encountered two red-shanked douc langurs, something the guide hadn’t seen before, but after a few moments, both groups went their separate ways without incident, to the relief of all present. We carried on shadowing the family for more than an hour before letting them carry on without further interruption. Then unexpectedly, we spotted a troupe of fifteen douc langurs high in the tree-tops and their different way of traversing the jungle, jumping from tree to tree feet-first instead of the languid swinging of the gibbons with their long arms, was an unexpected pleasure to see. Two hours after our arrival we emerged from the jungle for a well-deserved rest, invigorated by our adventures and experiences.
Back at the ranger station, we had brunch before getting back on our bikes for the ride back to civilization at the town of Veun Sai, on the banks of the Sesan and a ferry ride to meet up with our 4WD back to Banlung and a welcome splash in the pool at the Terres Rouge Hotel. It was a fabulous experience, seeing these rare and at risk gibbons in their natural habitat, and the added bonus of the douc langurs as well. It’s refreshing to know that the work of Conservation International and the park rangers are preserving this pristine environment and allowing new experiences like this to be made possible.
Balancing , juggling, acrobatics, highwire are all part of the PPS show
The Battambang Circus comes to Siem Reap – next year.
The word is out that Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS) are going to open a new circus performance venue in Siem Reap in the middle of next year (June 2013) under a Big Top where daily shows will be on the agenda. The reputation of PPS have risen considerably over the past few years and they now feel confident of offering their top quality product to a wider range of tourists in temple town, even though attendances in Battambang have exceeded expectations in the past twelve months. PPS will continue their regular diet of circus-performance entertainment in Battambang with shows most Monday and Thursday nights, and occasionally Saturdays, during the month of May and throughout the Green Season. Once they move part of the operation to Siem Reap, they will maintain their circus-training school in their current home. Their ultra modern shows mix different disciplines, live music, choreography, tremendous technique, poetry and burlesque. And they are on their travels very soon too. In May, June and July part of the circus troupe are off for a series of shows in France. Then they will take a different show,dealing with the Khmer Rouge period to a different set of venues in France before heading to Britain for the IF Festival in Milton Keynes on 20-23 July and the South Bank Theatre in London from 25-28 July.
