I left the thoroughly uninteresting and, frankly rather shite Kampong Cham, in search of the paradise I'd heard Kratie to be. Slightly disappointed once I got there but it was still pretty nice. Anything was gonna be better than Kampong anyhow...
So I arrived on a bus and saw a guy with a hotel brochure which he was waving enthusiastically at a Western girl further up the bus. I enquired as to whether said Western girl had anywhere to stay, and she was going to stay there along with a couple from Manchester, it truned out. The brochure, in similar vain to the hotel in Chiang Mai (for those of you who pay attention) seemed too good to be true, at only US$3 a night. When we went in it turned out it was even better. Though the corridors did seem to move every time I left my room in true Hogwarts style, rendering me lost and confused for a disproportionate amount of time.
Anyway, after a quick wander around Kratie, thinking I'd see the sights for a few hours, I returned to my hotel around 30 minutes later. I'd walked on every street in town 3 times. And yes it took me 30 minutes.
Oh well, Aldous Huxley and his Brave New World called and so I set about it until I could fathom the energy to remove myself to quarters from which I might procure some nourishment - til I could be arsed to get some grub, for the layman.
And that was my evening.
I had booked a dolphin seeing trip for the morning so I had that to look forward to at stupid o'clock and so, like the sensible, responsible and generally well rounded guy that I am, I retired early.
Dolphins, or freshwater Irrawaddy Dolphins if you will, or yet Orcaella brevirostris if you really will; yeah we saw some. We got motos to Kampi and we could see them from the shore, then we got on a boat and we could see some from the boat. It was pretty cool, but I guess once you've done 3 dolphin seeing trips, the fourth is not that much different. This seemed to be the consensus of the group as a whole as we basically used the hour on the boat to chat about places and general traveller chit-chat.
Then we went to a hill with a temple on it. Great views over the area and some weird paintings depicting what I guessed to be Heaven and Hell (see pics - they're weird) and some other stuff. Again this was pretty cool. And then it was back to Kratie.
Got back, went for lunch, met a girl over lunch, chatted, arranged to meet for tea, then I went to help my moto driver teach an English class. While waiting for him to pick me up I was really hoping he wouldn't. But once I got there and helped teach the class I loved it. He'd asked me to go the day before and I made my excuses but, after actually going, I wished I'd gone both days. See, I can enjoy myself whilst giving something back to the community.
And then I left.
So in all Kratie is a quiet, very small town, with very little to do,
whatever the Lying Planet leads you to believe, but it's nice to sit in
one of the Western owned guesthouse cafes around the market and watch
the people go by. Anyone travelling to/from Laos and thinking of
stopping either here or Stung Treng; from what I've seen I'd stay in
Stung Treng, unless you really love those dolphins.
Kirsten (the aforementioned Western girl, turning out to be Dutch) was on my bus to Laos. Which is where the epic adventure continues. Tune in next time for tales of wild hammock sitting, entire books being read, and a whole lot of chilling out being done...
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