Mondulkiri forest, three days, two camp nights

This is the one trek on our list that is not a homestay. Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary covers about 2,927 square kilometres across Mondulkiri and Kratie provinces and is home to Bunong communities. In March 2012 the Bunong village of Andoung Kraloeng received a collective land title for its community. Its forest camp, built in a Bunong style, hosts walkers who come with community guides to look for the sanctuary's habituated groups of southern yellow-cheeked crested gibbons.

It suits people who want forest and wildlife over terraces and villages, and who cope with heat. The walking is mostly level or rolling, but humidity under the canopy makes 12 kilometres feel much longer.

Everything about Mondulkiri is the reverse of northern Vietnam. There are no terraces and few climbs. The landscape around Sen Monorom is rolling grassland and forest on a low plateau; inside Keo Seima the forest closes in, and the interest is in what lives in it rather than in a view from a ridge. The sanctuary is home to primates such as black-shanked douc langurs as well as the southern yellow-cheeked crested gibbons that the dawn walks set out to find.

The rhythm of the days is different too. You start very early, rest through the hottest hours at camp, and walk again in the late afternoon when the forest is active. Evenings are spent around the camp, not in a family kitchen. If you have walked in Sa Pa or Pu Luong already and want a contrast, this is the one; if you have never trekked before, it is a gentle introduction to walking days, as long as you handle heat.

By distance and climb this is grade 1 on our route scale. By comfort it is not: daytime heat and humidity, a 04:30 start on day two and two nights on a camp bed. Drink more water than you think you need.

The camp is built from bamboo and wood in a style based on Bunong houses, with raised sleeping platforms, mosquito nets and shared washing facilities. Meals are cooked by the community team. It is simple and clean; it is not a hotel and not a family's home.

We call this a camp rather than a homestay on purpose. If sleeping inside a family house is the part of trekking you want most, one of our Vietnam routes or Nam Ha in Laos will give you that.

See the pricing page for how we quote, and how to book for the steps.

Keo Seima is managed by Cambodia's Ministry of Environment with technical support from a conservation organisation, and 11 indigenous communities hold legal rights to their land inside it. Visits run through the community: you walk with their guides, keep voices low near the gibbons, and stay on the paths they choose. In Mondulkiri more broadly, elephant projects that follow good practice let visitors watch elephants from a distance only; we do not include elephant riding or bathing.