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Published: August 25th 2007
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Day 121
We left Phnom Penh on the bus in the early morning and arrived at Kratie in the afternoon. We found a place to stay and then walked the short distance into the small town centre to explore. We wandered around the market and found a stall selling some interesting looking food that we fancied trying for tea. Our takeaway dinner tied up in several small plastic bags we went back to the hotel where we scabbed a bowl and spoon each and sat out on the hotel's large balcony overlooking the river to eat.
As we ate and chatted to a couple of other travellers a storm built up overhead. There was no rain but we sat for ages mesmerised by the most spectacular lightning display we have ever seen. Huge forks of lightning crossed the sky, lighting up our surroundings at regular intervals - fantastic.
It was as we chatted to the other travellers that we found out that we may not be able to get our Laos visas at the border as we had planned (and been told was possible in Phnom Penh). Oh dear! We planned to check this out in the morning.
We went to our room to go to bed to find that it sounded like someone was using a pneumatic drill outside our window. On asking at reception we found that it was the generator and it would go on past 1am - too late for us after our early morning! So we had to pack up and move to another room across the hall.
Day 122
Chrissie packed up our stuff again as we had been told we could move to a room with a TV that evening (a good thing to have in a town which shuts down at 8.30pm!) and Mark went out to check the visa situation. He returned with the news that we would have to go back to Phnom Penh to sort it out as they couldn't do it here. Our first major balls-up! This would mean another few days in Cambodia waiting on passports and some more long bus journeys. We had a trip booked for the morning so resolved to sort out our little fiasco when we got back.
Our trip this morning was the reason we had come to Kratie - we were going out to see
if we could catch a glimpse of the rare freshwater Irrawaddy Dolphins which live in the river here. We jumped on the back of a couple of motos and, after a very fast ride and a quick stop at a local temple on a hill, we arrived at the boat station.
The boat took us out to a quiet spot on the river and killed its engine so as not to scare the dolphins away. We waited for ten minutes or so and saw nothing. We both started to get the sinking feeling that our trip would be fruitless when we heard water being blown out behind us and turned to see the arch of a dolphin's back curving back into the water. Over the course of the next hour we saw lots of the blunt-nosed dolphins as they swam gracefully around our boat at varying distances, sometimes alone, sometimes playing in pairs. This was an amazing experience and we couldn't believe we had seen so many dolphins as we made our way back to shore. Our photos really just show the dolphins backs as they swim back into the water so if you want to see what these
Dolphin spotting
sorry we dont have a very good zoom -they were actually really close! cuties look like do a google image search for irrawaddy dolphin.
After another speedy ride back to town we arrived at the hotel (Oudom Sambeth for those going to Kratie looking for a place NOT to stay!) to be told that they didn't have a room for us as promised (unless we wanted the room above the generator - stupid question). This hotel was in a nicer spot on the riverside than others in town so when they promised they would save us a room for the following night we agreed to stay elsewhere for one night and return the next day.
We found a place to stay, had some dinner and when the town shut down for the night retired to watch a bit of TV. Unfortunatley we were only able to get one channel clearly, the Discovery Channel so we learnt a thing or two although mainly about how psychics can be used in murder investigations!
Day 123 to day 125
After a bit of a lie-in and a spot of brunch we packed up yet again and returned to the Oudom Sambeth Hotel to check into our promised room and guess what...no room
for us. This had long since ceased to be amusing and uncharacteristically losing our cool we told the manager exactly what we thought of his management skills!
Thankfully the room we had just vacated was still available and we checked back in resigning ourselves to some more quality time with the Discovery Channel.
We spent the rest of the next few days relaxing in this very quiet little town while we waited for our passports. We found a cheapish internet place, a local restaurant serving great Khmer food and a little cafe serving a great lemon juice (our drink of choice in the heat of SE Asia) and of course we Discovered an awful lot of interesting and useful information!
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Debbie
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How cute!
Good to hear from you again, just been catching up and had to google those dolphins-how cute are they?! Sounds like you're having such a fantastic time, the more I read the more I think it's something that should be done! Lots of love xxxxxx