Upon leaving Siem Reap, we had a disjointed trip to Kratie (Kra-chays) that involved spending a night back in Phnom Penh because of the bus timings. Our second bus left PP at 10:45am and we departed on what was, theoretically, a six hour journey.
We should’ve recognised that we were in for trouble right from the off when, less than 30 minutes into the journey, the bus’s right wing mirror fell off. Cambodians drive on the same side of the road as North Americans, making the passenger side mirror somewhat important for a bus that travels on roads where the sight of a car overtaking a truck overtaking a bigger truck isn’t altogether rare. The driver attempted to fix it himself but, being too short to reach, failed to do anything other than amuse Rich and I. Rich got up to help, but the makeshift solution they created wasn’t to the driver’s liking. On we went without a mirror. Further down the road, the driver stopped the bus and jumped out, returning moments later with a roll of packing tape and a small, gold-trimmed mirror similar to what we’ve seen in some spirit houses – maybe 5″x7″. Rich got drafted in once again to help with the DIY project and, between the two of them, they managed to get the mirror positioned to the driver’s satisfaction so that we could get the trip back underway while the engineering side of my husband took over and he attempted to regale me with ideas of how that mirror could’ve been affixed more effectively. Yawn. Apparently, though, I’m not the only person who recognised the importance of that wing mirror. What was supposed to be a six hour trip turned into a tedious nine hour mission, as our bus crept cautiously toward Kratie, the interior ringing with the wailing soundtrack of a Khmer karaoke video – a sound not unlike that which might be heard if you tied a cat to a ceiling fan running at full speed during an earthquake. Needless to say, it was with immense joy that we stepped off that bus…and into the waiting throng of guesthouse reps. Not sure that karaoke was so bad after all…
We gave the guesthouse gang a polite “thanks, but no thanks”, and set off on our own, safe in the knowledge that Kratie is a small town with almost all of the guesthouses laid out around two blocks. We settled on a $15 room with air-con (would’ve been $6 without but we were hot and overtired and in need of some cool air – apparently electricity is very expensive in Kratie!) and then walked around the corner to find dinner after a brief stop to watch an evening game of boules – something surprisingly common in Cambodia. Bring on the barbecue! We spied a row of charcoal grills and perused the offerings: pork belly, strips of pork and beef, and chicken legs. Yum. After a long day on the bus, we were starving and happily chowed down on our hand-picked selection of beautifully grilled goodies and a couple plates of rice before heading back to the room for a much-needed sleep.
In the morning, we realised just how little there is in Kratie – two restaurants cater mainly to foreigners (fine; not usually where we choose to eat anyway, except Red Sun Falling turned out to have exceptional food), plus there is a handful of cafes that are filled in the evenings with locals watching boxing. Aside from a dozen guesthouses, there’s also a “Posts Office” (those posts must need careful monitoring), a market, a riverfront esplanade…. and that’s it. The big draw in Kratie is actually found 15km north of town in Kampi: Irrawaddy dolphins. These odd-looking beakless creatures are genetically related to the orca and are listed as vulnerable across the population, but since 90% of the entire population is found in Bangladesh, the Southeast Asian population is listed as critically endangered, their existence threatened by local gill netting (drift netting) practices and, historically in Cambodia, grenade fishing by lazy Khmers.
We hired a moto and, for a whopping $11, were set to go with our transport and, essentially, our day’s entertainment as we set off for a couple of hours’ exploration. The villages south of Kratie were teeming with children, all of whom were eager to say hello, as were most of their parents. During our late-morning ride, I can’t recall seeing a single other white face, which was oddly satisfying; nothing like feeling as though we had stepped off the tourist map after being surrounded by masses of tourists in downtown Siem Reap. We travelled down rutted dirt roads and watched a game of soccer, scoped out the rice paddies, spied on fishermen as they crept down the river with their net, spotted children peering out of windows and generally enjoyed taking in the sight of Khmers getting on with life as they know it. I commented to Rich that it would seem so odd if people came to our home towns and started taking photos of us doing everyday jobs that were completely inane to us, yet somehow these people are happy to thrust their children forward to be photographed and seem quite content to have us enter their villages to see what they are doing.
After two hours on bumpy roads in direct sunshine, the midday heat forced us inside; the sun is so strong here right now that, even though there’s none of the humidity we experienced in Borneo, the heat is virtually intolerable through the midday hours unless you’ve got shade and/or a cold drink (or six). After a couple of hours’ hibernation, we put our protesting tailbones back in the saddle and made our way down the main road, 15 km north to Kampi. Time to watch some dolphins.
For $18, the two of us got a boat to ourselves and our boatman rowed us away from shore instead of turning on the engine, since the dolphins were already surfacing within 50m of the boat and they are generally mindful about running motors within 100m of the creatures. We spent a very peaceful hour on the river, watching dolphins surface in every possible direction and listening as our boatman muttered “chee-doe” each time one surfaced – adding extra emphasis (“Cheee-DOE”) for particularly nice and/or close sightings. At one stage, while the other half dozen boats were in the middle of the river watching several dolphins, there was a large splash just behind our boat. We turned, and watched again as a tail appeared above the water with a sharp flick and a splash, sending a fish soaring ten feet into the air. Fascinating.
I was disappointed when our time was up; it was such a calm and beautiful way to spend a late afternoon. We stuck around for another 15 minutes, watching the sun fall ever lower on the horizon, casting a luminous orange glow across the surface of the Mekong, and then it was time to go back to the “bustling metropolis” for barbecue, a shower, and sleep as, with little else to hold us in Kratie, we had decided to book a bus to Sen Monorom in Mondulkiri province and we had a 7:30am pick up to look forward to.
Grateful for: conservation and education efforts
