Ratanakiri is the end of the map: the province in Cambodia's far northeast, wedged against Laos and Vietnam, where the earth turns red, the jungle thickens and the country tourists know —temples, beaches, cities— is left far behind. Its name says it all: 'mountain of gemstones', after the sapphires and zircons still scraped from its soil today. It is one of the most remote, wild and culturally rich regions of Cambodia, a destination for travellers looking for untouched nature and a genuine encounter with the highlands' original peoples.
The natural heart of the province is Yeak Laom lake, an almost perfect volcanic crater filled with clear water and surrounded by jungle, formed thousands of years ago, where a swim is one of the most memorable experiences in the country. Around it, a string of waterfalls —Kachanh, Katieng, Cha Ong— tumbles through the greenery, and beyond lies the vast Virachey National Park, one of the last great wildlife refuges in Southeast Asia. All of it with the trademark red earth that stains roads, rivers and even the traveller's clothes.
But what makes Ratanakiri unique is its people. Here most of the population belongs to Indigenous highland peoples —Tampuan, Jarai, Kreung, Brao and others—, with languages, animist beliefs and traditions very different from those of the country's Khmer majority. Visiting their villages, their carved cemeteries and their markets, with respectful guides, is a glimpse into a deep and rarely seen Cambodia. This guide helps you get around a province of difficult roads and discover, respectfully, one of its most authentic corners.
For centuries Ratanakiri was a frontier territory inhabited by Indigenous highland peoples (the Khmer Loeu: Tampuan, Jarai, Kreung, Brao and others), animists closely tied to the forest, living on the margins of the lowland Khmer kingdoms. Its remoteness made it a key setting in the 20th century: Vietnamese communists operated in the area from the 1940s, and in the mid-1960s the Khmer Rouge leadership, with Pol Pot, set up its insurgent base here, drawing support from minorities who resented the central government. Between 1969 and 1970, the region suffered heavy US bombing aimed at Vietnamese sanctuaries, and in 1970 it fell under Khmer Rouge control. After decades of war and isolation, peace slowly brought nature and cultural tourism, but also pressure from deforestation, mining and plantations on Indigenous lands. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The highlands of the far northeast: hills, jungle and waterfalls, home to Cambodia's Indigenous peoples and far removed from the Khmer world of the plains.
Read the history of Northeast (mountains and jungle) →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The name says it all: Ratanakiri means 'mountain of precious stones', a blend of words of Sanskrit origin (ratana, jewel) and Khmer (kiri, mountain), a nod to the sapphires and zircons that have been scraped from its red earth for generations. But long before gems gave the province its name, these hills and forests in Cambodia's far northeast, wedged against Laos and Vietnam, were already home to peoples who had lived here for centuries, perhaps millennia.
They are known as the Khmer Loeu, 'the Highland Khmer': a group of indigenous peoples (Tampuan, Jarai, Kreung, Brao, Kavet, Lun and others) who are not part of the Khmer majority of the rice paddies and cities, but belong to a highland world of their own. They have their own languages (several from language families unrelated to Khmer), animist beliefs filled with nature spirits, and ways of life based on shifting cultivation, hunting and gathering in the forest. Their cemeteries, with carved wooden tombs decorated with sculptures, are one of the most distinctive cultural expressions in the country.
For almost all of their history, these peoples lived with great autonomy, beyond the reach of the central Cambodian state. The lowland Khmer kingdoms, Angkor and its successors, had barely any presence in these remote forests, which were hard to reach and harder to govern. For the Khmer state, Ratanakiri was literally the edge of the known world: a wild frontier inhabited by 'the people from up there', a land apart that official history all but ignored. That remoteness would be both their shield for centuries and their undoing in the 20th century.
Ratanakiri's geography explains much of its history. It is a highland province with a volcanic past that left visible traces, such as the beautiful crater lake of Yeak Laom, formed thousands of years ago in the crater of an ancient volcano, and the distinctive fertile red earth that colours roads, rivers and crops. Large rivers, dense tropical forests and rolling hills complete a landscape of great beauty but difficult access.
That deep jungle, now partly protected by the vast Virachey National Park, was for a long time a natural barrier that kept the region isolated from the rest of Cambodia. The borders with Laos to the north and Vietnam to the east were blurred lines drawn on colonial maps, of little meaning to the indigenous peoples who moved through the forest by their own logic, far removed from modern states. When France established its protectorate over Cambodia in 1863 and folded the region into French Indochina, those borders became official, but village life carried on almost unchanged for a long time.
Being a remote, forested borderland had huge consequences in the 20th century. Precisely because it was inaccessible, isolated and had porous borders, Ratanakiri became an ideal setting for clandestine war: a place to hide, cross international borders unchecked and organise an insurgency far from the eyes of central power. The same remoteness that had preserved its indigenous peoples would drag them into the heart of one of the darkest chapters in Cambodian history.
Few places in Cambodia carry such a heavy and little-known historical weight as Ratanakiri. It was here, in this remote province, that much of the tragedy that would devastate the whole country took root. Vietnamese communists had been operating in the area since the 1940s, taking advantage of its isolation and porous borders. And in the mid-1960s, the leadership of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the future Khmer Rouge, chose Ratanakiri as the site of its insurgent base.
In 1963, Pol Pot and much of the communist leadership left Phnom Penh and withdrew to the northeast, setting up their headquarters in the forests of Ratanakiri. There, the guerrillas managed to win the support of the Khmer Loeu peoples, exploiting the resentment many of these minorities felt towards the central government and its policy of forced assimilation. Hundreds of highlanders joined the ranks of the Khmer Rouge, who found in the region both a refuge and a recruiting ground. Sihanouk himself said in 1969 that Ratanakiri was 'practically North Vietnamese territory'.
The United States responded to this breeding ground of insurgency with crushing violence. Between March 1969 and May 1970, the US Air Force unleashed a massive and largely secret bombing campaign over eastern Cambodia (operations such as the one known as 'Menu'), aiming to destroy Vietnamese communist sanctuaries. The bombs fell on land inhabited by indigenous communities with no part in the war: villagers fled their homes, hid in the forest and survived out in the open, often alongside the Khmer Rouge themselves. In June 1970, the central government withdrew its troops and left the region to Khmer Rouge control. Ratanakiri was thus both the cradle of the revolution that would give birth to the genocide and one of its first victims.
After the horror of the 1970s and the long decades of war, occupation and recovery that followed the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Ratanakiri slowly found its way back to peace. Its isolation lasted a long time (until just a few years ago, getting to Banlung was an odyssey along dusty tracks), but as roads improved and Cambodia opened up to the world, the province began to attract nature and culture travellers, drawn by Yeak Laom Lake, the waterfalls, the Virachey forest and, above all, the extraordinary diversity of its indigenous peoples.
Today Ratanakiri offers travellers one of the most authentic experiences in Cambodia: swimming in a volcanic crater, walking among red-earth waterfalls, heading into one of the last great forests of Southeast Asia and meeting, respectfully, living indigenous cultures that keep their languages, beliefs and traditions. Coffee and other highland crops, small-scale gem mining and a budding tourism industry make up its economy.
But the province's future is under threat. Deforestation, the spread of large plantations (rubber, cashew and others), illegal logging, mining and dam building are putting pressure on the forests and, above all, on the ancestral lands of the indigenous peoples, many of whom have seen their territory and way of life shrink. The province that was a refuge for ancient cultures and the tragic cradle of a revolution now faces a quieter but equally decisive challenge: protecting its nature and its peoples from the advance of exploitation. For the mindful traveller, exploring Ratanakiri is also a way to value, and help protect, one of the most fragile and fascinating corners of Cambodia.
