~ The forest rangers are often quite helpful... When motorcycling up the back road into Kirirom Park at the end of 2019, they showed us which way to go to reach the top... Although, in the process, they led me to a wooden plank across a small almost dry creek bed, which I failed to negotiate. I fell off my bike almost 3 meters down onto the creek bed, and its muddy flat rocks. Luckily for me, the Honda AX-1 hit the creek bed perpendicularly, on its rear wheel and then landed on its side, almost undamaged except for the rear tail light, the left rear foot peg (which I got welded back on in Stung Treng) and both rear view mirrors... Right away, the group of four rangers helped me haul the bike back up the steep bank with ropes and got us going again the right way -- all as if nothing major had happened. Luckily, my passenger was not on the back when I fell off the plank trying to cross the creek. I was not even bruised, having landed on my back on the mud-coated creek bed... Helmets are definitely a good idea... Anyway, I asked the forest rangers what their main job was. They said they actively search out poachers of both wildlife and trees, and regularly catch them on their patrols of back trails. Two of them were carrying well-worn AKs...

About the protection of parks in Cambodia, it seems the track record is rather sketchy... Across the highway from the Cardamom camp mentioned above, you can see the calculated scale of the damage already done to Botum Sakor park... I guess there are no rangers there, and someone brokered a big export deal of cut timber or scrub. You can see a road from the big empty space going all the way to the coast, which offers a convenient way to get in and out unnoticed...