Kratie - interesting little place

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The bus ride up to Kratie is apparently meant to take around 6 hours, ours took 7.5 hours unfortunately due to an elderly woman throwing up (at least I hope that's what it was) in the isle of the bus as the bus pulled out of the Phnom Penh bus station. May I just say it was one of the most putrid smells I've ever been around and unfortunately hung around for the 45 minutes til we made it to a depot thing towards the outskirts of Phnom Penh where they washed out the isle. I pity the poor guy who had to clean up the mess.

The good news about the bus ride to Kratie was that the 'smooth as silk' road that Lonely Planet talked about was still mostly in tact. The route did take me back out the major construction work that I passed on the way to Phnom Penh from Siem Reap but once we got past that part of the road, it was a fairly smooth ride. Didn't stop my butt from going to sleep though.

Kratie is an interesting little town. I've spent 4 nights here which is more than you need to do the normal tourist thing, but it's a good place to relax and read a book and do very little or watch cable TV in your room as the monsoon rain pelts down outside which has been what I've been doing.

Three days before I arrived in town the local market burnt down which meant I arrived to find a lot of people working on a twisted mess of concrete and steel. The stores that would normally be in the market have been scattered around the markets ruins as well as down side streets and on the riverfront. It will hopefully be rebuilt bigger and better for the people but according to a local shopowner it did depress the town a little.

I stayed at Heng Heng II Hotel and must admit that I'm not that happy with them. They don't change the sheets each day, there's no flat sheet or doona to cover yourself with although there is a scratchy synthetic thing I'm guessing you're meant to use and they haven't cleaned my room today. Also they're not very helpful and I'm the only westerner staying here (probably for a reason), the rest appear to be staying at Star Guesthouse where I've been eating which ahs really lovely staff and awesome food - try the Beef Luk Lac and they have a great cooked breakfast) or at You Hong Guesthouse which I've tried their food but they're not as good. Not sure what either guesthouse rooms are like, but You Hong advertises air conditioned rooms while Star Guesthouse has free wifi in their restaurant (not sure about in rooms).

I hired a tuk-tuk from You Hong Guesthouse to go see the freshwater dolphins and to go to the mountain temple on my way back and he was quite nice and wandered around the temple with me. At the dolphins I met a couple of Danish tourists who were doing the Mekong Discovery Trail where you ride a bike along a set bike route to see a few other highlights around the area. They seemed to be enjoying it. I was tempted to do it today however woke up feeling a little funny in the stomach (first time in Cambodia) so didn't do the ride which was probably a good idea as the monsoonal rain came through early today at midday and was quite heavy.

The freshwater dolphins are lovely. We saw a fair few of them but they don't really get out of the water much and it's hard to get up close to them for a good photo. Once the driver turns the boat engine off though, it's a remarkably peaceful way to spend some time on the Mekong with the only sound around being the occassional sound of people building on the shore or the sound of a dolphin surfacing for air. The money of the tickets to see the dolphins goes to help sustain their habitat apparently which is good. The best time to see them during the wet season (now) is in the morning as the afternoon they don't go out in a storm.

The mountain temple is lovely too. It's an active temple with both monks and nuns and looks like many of the standard temples around the countryside but is in a stunning location. One warning with this temple though is that there are over 200 stairs to get up to the top of the temple, so if you're not that fit or have problems with stairs, this place may not be good for you. From the top of the temple you can see right through the valley across to the river and apparently in the dry season it's great to watch the sun set up there but in the wet season the sunset is blocked out by the leafy trees.

In all, Kratie was a great little stop and the people are mostly lovely. given my time again on this trip I'd stay at Star Guesthouse though.

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