I really want to apologize to anyone who has to do laundry at hotels in rural Cambodia - I have inflicted terrible pain upon them in the last few days!! Between the build and now traipsing around in lateritic soils all day, I come back to my room filthy. At least in Tbeang Meanchey it was normal dirt-coloured dirt. Here in Ban Lung, it's lateritic soils derived from basaltic rocks, and it is very, very, very orange-red. It stains everything - your hands, your feet, your clothes, your shoes, backpack, you name it. Everything turns a lovely orangey-red colour. I gave in laundry this morning prior to leaving for the field and warned them "very, very dirty! might have to wash twice!" after which I was told the washing is done by hand. Oh my. I suspect I should be leaving a very large tip before leaving...
Today our foursome split up - the mineralogists off to hunt for zircons, and the non-mineralogists off to ride elephants and see the waterfalls. I've been to the waterfalls here and I can attest that they are beautiful. Glenn, Andy and I did that trip on motorcycles a few years back and came back more filthy than I have ever been in my life.
Dermot and I headed out to see both Phum Throm and Bokeo Clas today, about 30 minutes to the east of town. We soon discovered that where there were dozens of miners 2 years ago, there was now only large piles of dirt, vacant holes, and brand new rubber trees planted in between. It was quite a shock, as when we visited Phum Throm 2 years ago, it was a thriving community of miners, all of whom sold their stones to Mr. Pross at the end of the day, the gem dealer who owned the land. However, we were told before that mining is very dependant on rubber prices - if rubber is fetching a good price, farmers will rip everything up and plant rubber trees. And thus kick out all of the miners. The rubber industry is HUGE in this part of Cambodia, and it results in massive deforestation of old growth hardwood forests. All along the highway near Ban Lung, huge tracts of land have been cleared and burned and then planted with rubber trees. It's horrific to look at and the number of rubber plantations that have sprung up all over the countryside in the last two years is almost nauseating when you contemplate how much hardwood and native species had to be removed to plant these trees. The problem with rubber is that the trees only start producing after 3 years, and then are tapped out, literally, by the time they are 20 years old. On the border with Vietnam, the problem is even worse - Vietnamese companies are crossing the border, logging all the hardwood, and hauling it back to Vietnam. Why? Because the Cambodian government is corrupt and can only see the money that is currently right there in front of them. There is no thought to long-term environmental impact or natural resource sustainability in this country. It's difficult to watch in a country which could be rich on their natural resources, including various metal deposits.
Okay, enough with the political/environmental diatribe... back to minerals!!
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| Dermot and I at Bokeo Clas |
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| Abandoned mine at the old Phum Throm site |
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| Old Phum Throm site, now a rubber plantation |
We wandered around the old Phum Throm site for a while, being careful not to fall into the 20 foot deep holes that were everywhere, but soon realized that there were no miners. We drove back to the main road and about 2 km further east to Bokeo Clas to ask the miners there where the Phum Throm miners had moved to. Mining is too lucrative here - they would not simply abandon the zircon deposits entirely. Sure enough, we discovered that they had moved to the other side of the highway, directly across from the old site. Happy with this information, we decided to stop in Bokeo Clas and check out what the miners here had for sale. No sooner than sitting down at a bench, we were surrounded by a hoard of villagers, miners and family and friends of miners alike. The tourists have arrived! The tourists have arrived!! And of course every single person came carrying a small grubby bag or plastic vial containing zircons of all sizes and quality.
If you have never experienced this type of mineralogical-circus, it's a bit overwhelming. People put a handful of rough stones in front of you and wait for their turn to name their ridiculous opening price. And prices this year were insanely higher than in past years - what I paid $2 for 2 years ago was now being asked for, at the start, at $25 or $30 for anywhere from 2 to 10 zircons. But negotiating is part of the game of course. If you don't come back with a counter-offer, they are offended. So even if you do not wish the buy the stones, or think the price is ludicrous, you name a price. And if you give in to a high price at the start, with the first or second seller, you are totally screwed in that village for the rest of the day - you are not getting fair prices from anyone! Everyone else will want the same rate that the silly foreigner just paid to their buddy!! For the most part, 75% of the asking price was about what I was aiming for.
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| Dermot checking zircons being sold by villagers/miners, Bokeo Clas |
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| Votha adding his opinion on the price of some zircons, Bokeo Clas |
Here's the problem. At every guesthouse in town (not that there are many of them!), they have a tourist "map" (and I use that term loosely because they are hand-drawn and certainly not to scale, and if you try and navigate with one, well, you should probably bring a GPS with you). On this map you'll find a little "X" that says "Gem Mines". Mr. and Mrs. Random Non-Mineralogist/Gemmologist Tourist come into town and are looking for what to do - elephant trekking, jungle trekking, go see the waterfalls, and oh look honey! we can go see the gem mines!! This is where the inflation is happening. Naive, uneducated tourists, and I say this in the nicest way possible and don't mean it to be demeaning, come into these gem mining camps, brought along by guides from town, and they proceed to buy rough zircons, and then later some heat-treated, cut ones. But they really don't know what they are buying, other than a souvenir from Ban Lung. And the villagers aren't stupid - they can see a naive tourist coming a mile away and up go the prices.
Why is this a problem for people who know what they are buying? Because the villagers begin to expect to be paid what the tourist just paid. What I know is worth only $1 or $2 because it useless to a gem dealer due to flaws (fractured, included, bad colour, etc) and cannot be heat-treated and cut, Mr. and Mrs. Tourist only know that it is a gem stone and will pay $25 for it, thinking they got a deal. So up go the prices. What the villagers do know is that we know what we're doing - carrying around a hand lens and an intense flashlight is a big red indicator flag. But they still try and get the tourist price. Which means that there is a lot more bartering required to bring them back down to earth! And I have to tell you, it's exhausting when you have half the village standing in a circle around you trying to sell you their samples. If you buy from only one person, they will all be mad. So you do have to share the wealth around. This was Dermot's first experience with the local zircon mafia, but he did fine, picking up a few lots for $5 each, bartering down from the ridiculous $30 some of them wanted. I managed to get a large, 2 x 2 inch crystal for about $5 and another small lot for the same. All in all not bad. We talked to one of the miners at Bokeo Clas, who let me haul up a bucket of mine material from his hole (hard work!) that he found only 2 zircons in 30 5 gallon buckets of laterite. It gives you a bit of perspective on how hard this work is. But I'm still not paying $30 for a handful of non-gem-quality zircon!!
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| Hauling dirt at Bokeo Clas |
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| Miner at Bokeo Clas |
After lunch, we headed off to the new Phum Throm site, which turned out to be in the middle of an active rubber plantation. Once we got there, we were quickly told, quite proudly, by one of the miners that he had foreigners down his hole. What the hell? We thought maybe he meant that in the past, he has let foreigners down the mine. Nope. We went over, and sure enough, we could see 3 headlamps at the bottom of the 36 foot deep hole. I called down to them and it was a young girl and her boyfriend. This is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever seen. The holes at this location are about 2.5 feet wide and 36 feet (12 m) deep. They balloon out slightly at the bottom, just wide enough for the miner to scoop out a few buckets of the laterite, but there is NOT room for 3 people down there!! Also, to add to the "fun", the water table at this locality, unlike the others, is high and the bottom of the mines are wet and very mucky - wet laterite is clay. So here are these two stupid farang, down this hole where usually only one small Khmer person fits. I called down and asked them "do you realize how many miners get killed doing this each year? you should probably come out of there right now". I must admit, I would like to go down, just to see, and we joked about it the last time we were here, but I would never do it - it's way too dangerous. These two South Africans finally emerged from the hole - the guy, a hell of a lot bigger than any Khmer miner, was a recent geology graduate. Well, that explains the slight stupidity and eagerness!! Votha found their motorcycle guide and gave him a blast of shit. The guide was clueless really - some random guy from the city trying to make some money driving tourists around so he can't really be faulted.
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| Miners at new Phum Throm |
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| Mounds of laterite at new Phum Throm |
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| Miners at new Phum Throm |
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| Abandoned mine at new Phum Throm |
After leaving Phum Throm, we headed back into Ban Lung to check out a few gem dealers. I want to buy some cut stones for our collection, and Votha knew the best places to go. The first place we went to had a great selection of stones - zircons from Ratanakiri, topaz from Takeo, and amethyst from just west of Ban Lung. We checked out her prices, and then decided to go visit our good friend the heat-treater, Mr. Kruy. His prices were more than double what the first shop had quoted! Crazy. And then we asked about some rough material, and there again, his prices were outrageous. I needed some rough from BeiSrok, one of the regions which isn't in operation any longer, and he took out premium gemmy material and quoted me $3000 USD per kilogram!! I tried to explain to him I just wanted 5 or 6 crystals, preferably euhedral ones, for reserach purposes. He finally came out with a bag of poor quality rough, but when we asked for a small bag's worth, he robbed us for $10 for the bag. Ridiculous. But I need that material for some other analyses as I seem to have lost the one and only sample I had from the previous trip. This dude is making money, I can tell you that! All in the name of science. :)
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