I arrived at Krati (pronounced cruchy) in the early afternoon, and having met Sarah on the bus we ended up sharing a room together to reduce costs. We found a nice room with a riverside view, and then we went for a walk looking for the free ATM (the other option is to use one that charges $4 per transaction). I had seen it on the way coming in to town, but i could quite remember how far it was, so after walking many km’s and not coming across it we decided to ask someone. They then phoned an English speaking person who could help us and they said it was right back where we had started – lol! So we turned around and headed back, and made it to the riverfront just in time for a beautiful sunset. And yes, we found the ATM as well, only a couple of blocks from our guest house!
Just north of Krati is Kampi, and this place is well known for sightings of the rare Irrawady river dolphins, of which it is believed that there are only 70 left in the stretch of river from Kampi to the Laos border. That is all thanks to Pol Pot – so yes he tortured and murdered thousands of humans, but his violence also extended to the dolphin population as they were hunted for their oils – and by grenade! So seeing the dolphins is quite a big tourist attraction, and you can tell by the fact that they have tourist prices – one of my pet hates! My lonely planet guide says that the out of season price is $5/4/3 depending on if there are1/2/3 tourists. However the prices are now $9 per tourist for one or two people, $7 per person if there are 3 or more people. Ouch. We cycled the 15km there and then i decided that i was not going to pay the $9, and Sarah didn’t want to either – we tried bargaining with them, but they were not budging. If we just sat there watching the river they wanted to also charge us $7 each – so we left for greener pastures up river. We found a French speaking local – unfortunately neither of us spoke French, so we couldn’t quite organise him to take us on his boat – we think he was telling us that the water was too low for his boat. We sat a while, ever hopeful of a potential free sighting – but none. We then headed further up river and eventually came upon a ferry about to depart, so we hopped on, thinking that maybe we would see a dolphin on this journey. We got to the other side of the river $0.25c poorer and having not seen any dolphins. We then continued to cycle down river continuing to watch the river for a sighting... All the while passing many families and children shouting hello as we cycled past. Sarah eventually gave up on replying, but i couldn’t bring myself to stop, so i continued replying to every ‘hello’ that was shouted from the sidelines. The views were just spectacular – and the temperature was to die for – literally!! It was scorching, and the sweat was just poring off of us. We were hoping to find someone with a motor boat that could take us to the dolphins for cheaper, but they were all manual rowing boats – and with the strength of the Mekong River – we preferred a motor boat. We continued cycling south and felt like we were going to be cycling forever without ever finding another ferry to the other side... But when you start seeing restaurants with TV’s then you know you are nearby – don’t bother looking for a sign, because there aint any. Thankfully we found it and we waited for the next ferry to come collect us to take us back to the mainland. We then decided to cycle the extra 6km’s back up river to the dolphin site to buy some trinkets... that ‘s when we met 2 South Africans who had just come back from the trip and said it was amazing. So Sarah and I, choking hard on swallowing our pride, forked out the $9 to pay for our boat trip out to see the dolphins. Within 30seconds of being on the boat, we saw our first dolphin! We then went out to a place that they frequent and watched them as they came up for air. The water is really flat and it is all around you, so when you are looking in one direction you hear them come up for air in another direction. So the pics are not that good, but it was good to be there, it was early evening so it was cooler so it felt like a good time to be on the river.
Trust me... it really is a dolphin!
After our adventure on the river we still had 15km’s to cycle back to town, so most of that was done in the dark. Sarah managed to pick up a local hitch hiker and give him a lift on her bicycle – rather her than me, as i am still not brilliant on a bicycle... From our little map that we were given, we cycled 52km during the day! What about the pyjama party you ask, well Cambodia is one big pyjama party – many of the local women walk around in their matching pyjama sets... i don’t think anyone has told them that they are pj’s, and i certainly wasn’t going to burst their bubble, instead i decided to join them!
These young Cambodian girls were teaching Sarah and i to make friendship bracelets... they also ran the guesthouse (aged 16 & 18)!!
No comments:
Post a Comment