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Published: February 16th 2006
After we recouperated from our time with the pigs and too much rough road travel for our tummies to handle we decided to venture out and check out what Kratie had to offer.
We rented 125cc motorbikes and drivers for them and went to check out the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins. There are supposedly less than 80 or so in the world and 20 or so appen to make a permanent home in 2 deep water pools in the Mekong River on the edges of Kratie. We hopped on the bikes (a first for us here!) and drove about half an hour to the site. There is a national park set up there and they are dedicated to saving this species which first became endagered because of poaching for their oils during the Khmer Rouge regime.
We boared a boat along with another canadian, a german, and a begian couple. Our driver paddled out about 50 metres from the shore and soon enough he was pointing 15 metres from our boat saying "dolphin!, dolphin!" Sure enough, when we looked over we saw 2 dolphins breaching. For the next half hour or so this continued at various sights around our boat. The closes they got was around 10 metres and didn't see much more than their backs and dorsal fins. One time I glances over and for a split second I saw one breach vertical towards the boat and I caught sight of its smile before it dove back under. A little smile from the Irrawady dolphin! They have more of a rounded nose and face than the common bottlenose species, but they are still so beautiful. I caught a video of a couple but no still pictures...i'm not that quick! It was a great expereince and something that I had been looking forward to for a while.
On our way back into town we stopped at a temple on a hill. There was a monastery at the top where women lived and practiced their buddhism. They dress in white and shave their heads. It seems that women do not do this when they are kids as many monks do as all of them were older. They have very animated faces with beautiful features and big smiles for all the visitors.
We climbed 3 sets of stairs to the top temple. Each staircase was about 75 steps so it was a bit of a climb! We were rewarded with a view of the rice fields of the region. Dry right now, but we were able to tell the division between them and see the canals for the water. It is fairly flat is this region of Northwestern Cambodia so we could see quite far.
The stream of Buddhism here is quite close to Hindu and many of the paintings and statues depicts Hindu stories people. Some of the ones we saw here were quite gruesome as they depicted different tortures in hell. These lines the bottom of the temple walls while paintings of heaven in bright neon colours adorned the higher walls and ceilings.
We returned to our motos near dusk and although it was cloudy on the ride home the spaces between the clouds were bright red. Too bad for the clouds, it would have been a nice sunset.
Our moto drivers took us for a little ride around the town and dropped us at our guesthouse and we said good bye, but not with out a bit of joking around with them first. The people here are funny and like to joke with the foreigners. They have gone through many wars (with neighbouring countires and within their own). All are fairly recent and most families have at least one person to the horrors that took place. It seems that because of this they live life to its fullest and try to have many good times. They know how to relax as well as I've seen in done and there always seems to be social gatherings going on: at markets and in the homes we see. The men sit around and play games and gamble, kids walk hand in hand down the street, big brothers play games with their little siblings with great patients, and everyone has time for a nap in their hammocks.
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Love of Dolphins