Five modes of transport in one day

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We made it to Kratie (Krah-cheh) much quicker than we planned. We thought (been told) that we'd have to take a bus from Siem Reap to Kampong Cham, stay overnight, then take another bus the following morning. But...we took the bus to Kampong Cham ok, but when we got there we found three other backpackers wanting to get to Kratie in a hurry (even less time in Cambodia than we do) so we all piled into a taxi to Kratie. This was a couple of dollars more than the bus, but way faster. The driver took us the old, unpaved route, but we still beat the bus that had left a couple of hours before us. And saw some neat countryside at the same time.

Kratie is a small town on the banks of the Mekong, on the way to Laos. Although there are some nice old colonial buildings there, and a couple of wats outside of town, the reason people come to Kratie is to see the rare, endangered, soon to be extinct Irrawaddy River Dolphins. There arent a lot of these creatures left thanks to motor boats, dynamite fishing, the war, hunger...but we managed to see a few of them. We took a moto a few kms north of Kratie, paid our money to the conservation people, hopped in a boat and took off up the mighty Mekong. The dolphins werent all that hard to find actually, they were surrounded by other boats! And surprisingly none of them (the boats that is) were invasive or hassling the dolphins.

These animals arent like the ocean dolphins we are used to, or like the Amazopn river dolphins we saw a few years ago. They dont have the long beak/nose like ocean dolphins, and didnt jump and play like them either. Our pictures show a lot of vague lumps and fins in the water! We also got an amazing sunset over the river while out on the water.

If anyone else is heading for Kratie, try and stay in room 201 at the Heng Heng II Guesthouse as it has the best river view in town, and only US$5. Otherwise the GH doesnt have much going for it in a backpacker way.

So that was Kratie. We got there quicker than planned, and managed to see the dolphins on the day we arrived, leaving us more time for the jungle.

Those five modes of transport - tuk tuk, bus, taxi, moto, boat. And our feet of course,so make that six modes in one day.

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