An eye for the Irrawaddy
Trip Start
Mar 03, 2005
1
15
80
Trip End
Apr 08, 2006
Kratie,
Krâchéh,
Cambodia
Friday, April 15, 2005
The journey from Sen Monorom to Kratie was meant to be straight forward. A bus that went directly there. ie I wouldn't have to change. Well all seemed fine, when after three hours we stopped at a small town for a bite to eat. I read the entry in my guidebook about the town, called "Snuol", where it was described as being "a real end of the earth town that some travellers found themselves stuck in". Looking around the dirty streets I thought "I'm glad I'm not stuck here". Karma. I got back on the bus, and instead of heading north, to Kratie, it headed south, back to Phnom Penh! This was confirmed by a French guy in front of me, and I raced up the front to try and explain to the driver that I had a ticket to Kratie, not Phnom Penh. So what did he do? He stopped the bus, got my pack from the hold, pointed to a tin shed back down the road (which was the town's bus station), got back on the bus, and drove off. Picture a dirty barang (foreigner) with a dirty backpack by his feet on the side of the road in a dirty horrible looking decrepid town with no idea. That was me! I wandered back to the shed (after taking a quick movie on my camera to capture the crazy situation I found myself in), and showed my ticket to the guy, explaining "Kratie, te Phnom Penh!". He babbled some Khmer to me, and pointed at a plastic chair in the shed. I went for my guidebook and asked "What time is the bus to Kratie", and he informed me it was in 2 hours. That was the truth. In the end I made it to Kratie, but that was a situation I do hope doesn't repeat itself too often. What I found odd was the fact that no-one helped me. Usually at a bus station or similar place people will help to make sure your on the right bus. This was the first place that this didn't happen.
So I rolled into Kratie at 2:30pm, where I was met by a group of young guys trying to coax me into staying at their guesthouse. In the end I decided on two young guys who spoke reasonable English, and who offered me a room with Mekong views. It was a good choice! Sorya and Lucky(!) were fantastic guides! After a quick bite to eat, and a quick walk around the town to take some photos of the well preserved French buildings, Lucky drove me on his moto upriver to Kampi, the site of the dolphins. But before boarding a boat, we went a little further to a site where thousands of khmers were bathing in some rapids to celebrate the new year. It was crazy! Hundreds of small huts were erected on the rapids, and the khmers were all lying in the water, fully clothed, while some poxy khmer music blasted through the oversized speakers nearby. I had a quick dip, then Lucky took me to the site of the dolphins.
Now this was a real buzz. We drifted out about 100m into the river, and I just scanned the horizon for the dolphins. And there they were! Every few seconds they would come up for air! And they weren't like the dolphins back home either, instead they had square heads, with horizontal tails. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! Dolphins in the Mekong! However I was appalled at what happened next. Being the Khmer new year, hundreds of holiday makers made the journey from Phnom Penh to see the same thing I came to see. Wanting to keep them happy, the boat drivers turned their engines on to get as close to the dolphins as possible. Was my driver the only sane one?! Surely common sense would say that the engines would scare the dolphins off! And thus was the case. Lucky and my driver had a go at the other drivers, but they didn't listen. On the engines chugged, and off the dolphins went. At least I had a good 20 minutes of spotting them though.
On the way back to Kratie we stopped at Phnom Sombok, a temple upon a small hill that was the perfect spot to watch the sunset over the Mekong. The walls of one of the buildings here certainly was interesting, with depictions of hell. People with saws through there heads and people with branches growing out of them. Very odd. Unfortunately due to the light I couldn't get a decent picture. Lucky and I hung around to watch a beautiful sunset, and then we headed back to Kratie to grab some dinner.
