Blogs from Kratié, East, Cambodia, Asia

Another bus journey to take us to Kratie. It's amazing how the body can adapt to so many journeys! Today we sat at the back of the bus... The thought of more room lured us in, however the reality was that it was over the wheel and extremely bumpy! When we got to Kratie we had lunch at the Red Sun and had the most amazing chips. They were crinkle cut and hand fried - just like my mum used to make! We then explored the local market, it was much better here than in Kampong Cham and the locals made us feel much more welcome. After a short while chilling we set off to see if we could spot the Irrawaddy dolphins on the Mekong river. Harry said that he sees them nearly every time. ... read more

Absolutely the best 18 bucks I've spent in ages. The coffee and pumpkin bread (think ginger bread) that the good people at Sorya kayaking served up at 7.00 in the morning was almost worth the price of admission alone. Once the kayaks were loaded onto the truck we clambered on with them, 2 French girls, 3 French guys, myself and Lucky our guide, for the 40km drive to the drop off point on the Te (pronounced Tay) river. A bit of a slither down a steep, muddy bank and we were paired off (double yaks) for the 15km paddle, which was fortunately all downstream. About half way along we stopped at a village and clambered up through more mud, but nothing like what was waiting in store for us. The village is a small family concern ... read more

What a special time. With Kratie English School, at home sweet home, with a kind Cambodian family, a grand group of fellow volunteers, wonderful friends. I ride up in the morning dust on a tuk tuk, welcomed warmly by the teachers, English and Canadian accents, big smiles.. And up at the teachers table (under welcome shade and with breakfast bananas) I watch the 10am lesson in motion. There's two outside classrooms at Rith's family home, adorned with student drawings and name tags and colourful charts. Football kitted arms up waving, pick me, energy and enthusiasm to learn, definite cheekiness. The current gang - Charlotte, Robyn, Jaydon, Jess and Shawn - give me the lowdown, I was excited to get started. Timetables, lesson plans, insights and ideas. It was a group who would share so much, I ... read more

Ok so it doesn't rhyme. It's pronounced "crotchy." And this one time Mom and I went to Sugarloaf in Maine and while we were there we decided to go look at some schools. The GPS took us a really weird back roads way. And one of the roads was called "Katie Crotch Road." Actually. So the name of this place was too perfect and I decided to go here based entirely on that. There was a rooster on our bus. But it only crowed at the beginning of the trip. Not a sound you expect to hear on a bus. At the Cambodian border, a lot of people got off the bus to do the visas on their own. We had handed ours in at the bus station, so I stayed on the bus until I ... read more

La première journée de pause à vélo, voila le genre de journée qu'on apprécie particulièrement à bases de blog, massage, resto, marcher, jus de fruit... La journée se finira dans le même lieu que le veille mais avec bien plus de monde et s'agit du dernier jour de la fête de l'eau. Cette tradition symbolise la fin de la saison des pluie normalement le lendemain des bateaux, radeaux partent pour la capitale mais cette année celle-ci fût annulé sur la capitale mais cela n'empêchera personnes de tout de même faire la fête au temple bien-sûr toujours le même groupe de farang ( Français en Cambodgien) va ce joindre à eux !... read more