Getting to Kratie in one day was going to be a challenge,
but we decided we’d give it our best shot, and hole up in Phnom Penh (again)
for a night if we couldn’t connect to an ongoing bus there. Kratie is
pronounced ‘kra-chay’ it would seem, as asking for a bus to ‘kra-tea’ wasn’t
getting us very far! So bus one left Koh Kong respectably early, and we settled
back to a long journey to Phnom Penh, which was due to arrive at around 2pm.
And we did indeed reach the city by about then – only to find that pesky US
president Obama (yay! Four more years!) was visiting, so all the roads were
closed down around the centre. The bus therefore deposited everybody at a
petrol station on the outskirts (not sure quite why a petrol station) but there
were plenty of well-informed tuk-tuk drivers lying in wait for us all.
Realising we were 5k out of town and our options were few, we negotiated a fare
(after haggling down from an extortionate price to about a third of the
original offer – which was still expensive, despite the detours!) and were
shuttled to the central bus station by some wild back routes that relied on us
gripping our bags and the hand rail to stop ourselves (or our stuff) making a
premature exit from the vehicle.
The bus station is right next to the central market, so it’s
an absolute hive of activity to try to navigate when you’re tired, not sure
where to find the bus you need, and wondering if the Obama-delay has made an
overnight stop in Phnom Penh a necessity. However, the Cambodians are very
willing to offer advice or find a way to make things happen, so as soon as we
enquired about a share-taxi to Kratie, we had four Cambodians negotiating
around us with options for travel, so within minutes we were seated in a half
full minibus. We had a few more minutes to spare while they filled the rest of
the seats (nothing leaves on time if it’s not full here – in fact, ‘Cambodia
time’ is the only unit of time that counts here, which essentially means things
happen when all the right stars are in alignment and the time is right) so we
took turns to pop to the bathroom at the station – and when I went back to the
minibus it had moved, they’d filled up and Bradley and the driver were waving
frantically from a lay-by at me! I dashed across the road and jumped aboard,
only to find that the half-full minibus was almost full and impatient to leave.
Cambodia time had ratcheted up a notch!
We had been promised two seats together, with no more than
four people across a row, but after twenty minutes or so and a few more
pick-ups the minibus was overflowing with people, children sat on knees and
balancing between their parents’ legs, and extra seats pulled out of nowhere
and wedged between seats to create a bench. Two kids even stood in the back
where they were balanced on everyone’s luggage! All in all, a 16-person minibus
was carrying 23 people at one point, which was quite unbearable at times in the
stifling heat while speeding along bumpy roads. To resolve our discomfort, we
decided to crack open a bottle of wine and drink through the pain, though with
every bump in the road this had the potential to get messy! We managed to keep
the wine either in the bottle, cup, or inside us, and as the evening approached
and Kratie loomed a few hours away, we distracted ourselves with an impromptu
silent disco to while away the hours.
The minibus was running late, so we finally arrived in
Kratie at around 8.30pm, tired and fed up but in one piece despite the manic
driving along ropey old roads. We were dropped off near one of the four hotels
we were aware of, which fortunately had a room, so we booked in for two nights,
grabbed some crisps (very poor, I know!) for dinner, and went to bed early.
Over 12 hours of travel in one day wasn’t ideal, but we’d survived!
We only had one full day in Kratie so we decided to hire a
motorbike to explore outside the town (which really is just a gateway to its
surroundings, though it has beautiful views of the Mekong River which runs past
it). We had breakfast at a yummy café within a youth hostel at the other end of
town (they were fully booked, so we were lucky we’d got our room without
booking ahead!) and ventured out on our newly-acquired bike. There were a few
routes recommended to us along the Mekong Discovery Trail, all finishing with a
viewing of the Irrawaddy dolphins, so we headed north to Wat Sarsar Mouy Roy.
On the way, we drove alongside the Mekong River for much of the way, which was
a beautiful sight, and when we weren’t alongside the river we were passing
through small villages, which were interestingly different from other villages
we’d passed through. One thing we noticed is that you could buy petrol for your
motorbike from virtually every other home – there were miniature pumps
siphoning petrol from a barrel outside the front door, and you just had to pull
over and refill whenever you were running low – as long as you could find the
owner of the house, or one of their kids so they could track down their parents
for you! As motorbikes, rather than cars, are the main form of transport here, it’s
an ideal way to keep mobile when there are very few petrol stations outside of
major towns.
When we arrived at the temple it was approaching lunchtime,
so we stopped at the riverside restaurant opposite the temple and sampled some of
the local dishes. We’re not quite sure what we ate as only one person spoke
broken English, but with some optimistic pointing we picked something that
tasted great, though everything we tried to ask for invited laughter from all
the patrons, who seemed to all be family or very close friends. It all felt
very good-natured though, and they were so helpful, that we didn’t feel we were
being laughed at – not too much, anyway! We were offered a coconut each to
drink, which was delicious – and never-ending, one little coconut has what
feels like a litre or more of water inside. We’ve actually read that it is far
better for the environment to drink coconut water when you can than to
continually buy bottled water (one or the other being a necessity here for us
fragile Brits) so we figured we’d look out for more coconuts when we could.
Feeling very full and refreshed, we settled out bill and
wandered back over the road to the temple – only to be chased by the young man
with broken English – apparently we hadn’t paid for our coconuts, as they were
from the stall next to the restaurant. The bill for lunch had been very
reasonable (pennies really, it’s crazy) so we happily paid the extra for the
coconuts – they seemed so genuine that we assumed they were being honest about
the extra money.
The temple was quite small but worth a visit, and we met some very opportunistic children trying to beg from us – one of them chanting ‘money money money!’ at us, which was quite difficult to walk away from. We’ve seen several children begging at tourist sites and it is hard to know what to give, if anything – even though all the tourist information we’ve seen tries to stop visitors from giving money, or anything, it is very hard when you are confronted with people begging, especially children.
We began the journey back from the temple, trying to take
some videos of the roadside as we passed, though they weren’t all very clear –
here are some of the better ones:
Our final stop for the day was a late afternoon trip out on
the Mekong to see the rare Irrawaddy dolphin. The best time to see the dolphin
is early to mid-morning, or mid to late afternoon, so our arrival at just
before 4pm was perfect.
It was a surprisingly peaceful jaunt out on the river,
as the engine was rarely used, and each boat only has one or two people, or
small family groups aboard, so there seems to be genuine consideration for the
fragile dolphin population (the river trips are also supported by the WWF). We
were propelled out to the middle of the river using a bamboo pole, and within
moments of settling down we began to see dolphins, some just breaking the water
with their fins, others jumping joyfully in groups. We were out for nearly an
hour and the guide was helping us spot the dolphins, making sure we didn’t miss
anything and angling the boat so we had a good view. 
It was a fantastic
experience and worth every penny (though it wasn’t all that expensive to begin
with) and it was amazing to get so close to a critically endangered species in
their natural habitat (a species which is also having a revival in fortune,
which is great to hear!).
The WWF recently blogged about a trip to the same place:
As the sun began to set, we returned our motorbike, to find
that our hotel was hosting a wedding, or something that seemed like a wedding –
it may have also been a Buddhist ceremony, as there were a lot of monks and
everyone seemed to be exchanging gifts! Deciding to stay out of the way, we
went for dinner at the Red Sun Falling restaurant, which is a lovely place with
a book exchange lining the walls too, so while you wait for your meal you can
browse the walls looking for your next book! Bradley tried their red wine which
wasn’t so hot, but the beer (lovely Angkor!) was flowing and cheap, so he
switched quickly to the beer and we enjoyed another delicious curry, with a
view out to the moonlit Mekong.
The wedding/event was in full swing still when we arrived
back much later that evening, so we darted discreetly past the action and went
to bed to try and get a good night’s sleep before another bus trip the next
morning. When we did head back down to check out at around 8.30am, we were
amazed to find that the party was only just coming to a close – we’d fallen
asleep to the sounds of celebration, and been woken a few times by continued
partying, but assumed that by around 3am or so it had to stop! It seems that
the Cambodians are more than capable of pulling an all-nighter – even the older
generation were only just loading their gifts and younger family members into
taxis and minibuses when we made it downstairs! This was enough to make us feel
pretty old as we tiredly piled into another minibus to Ban Lung – our last stop
before Laos. We need some of that Cambodian energy!
View 2012 Journey in a larger map
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