The Cambodian Wild East, Dolphin Spotting, Waterfalls, 1 nearly 2 RTC's. It had it all !!

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Days 168-169 (Fri 22^nd – Sat 23^rdFeb) Sen Monorom, Mondulkiri



So, I got a midday bus to Sen Monorom, Cambodia’s wild east. The bus took around 5 hours and a pretty uneventful trip. I arrived around dusk. It was pretty wild on first impressions. It was very windy and significantly colder than anywhere else in Cambodia has been. I checked into a guesthouse, had a cold shower as there was no cold water, then popped out for dinner. Within 20 seconds of leaving the guesthouse the power in the town went. As I had no idea where anything was and it was completely dark I went back into the guesthouse until the power came back on.

When the power came back on I went to a restaurant called the Khmer Kitchen and had some food. I then sorted out a day trip for my full day in town to see the countryside and took in an early night.

The day trip started around half 9 and there was myself and a couple of Israeli’s going along with the tour guide. We took a minivan for the day as there aren’t what I’d call proper roads here. A motorbike would have resulted in a very dusty day out indeed.

We took in 2 waterfalls, Bousra and Sen Monorom as well as a local Pnong village and a plantation growing pretty much every type of Cambodian fruit going as well as coffee etc. Bousra waterfall was quite impressive indeed. It was 2 tiered and the lowest tier was huge. In between the 2 waterfalls were loads of little stalls selling local goods as well as locals having picnics and bbq’s. It seemed a strange place to have a group gathering but it was a nice spot.

We also visited a local Pnong Village, they literally have nothing but all seem quite happy. They live in wooden huts with thatched roofs, with various pigs, chickens and dogs running the show. We went into the main house, had a sit down and a couple glasses of local homebrew with the family. The alcohol tasted rank, very much like a South Korean soju. The rest of my time in Sen Monorom was spent sitting in my room drinking a few cans of beer whilst watching English football on tv between power cuts.



Days 170-171 (Sun 24^th – Mon 25^th Feb) Kratie



My minibus to Kratie was an experience. The minibus had 13 passenger seats, well we had 30 people and lots of luggage onboard. I have never seen so many people in such a small space., it was crazy. Luckily the road was good and it only took 4 hours to get there.

I arrived in Kratie and walked to a guesthouse where I’d agreed to meet my friend Puck (Holland). We’d met in Bangkok and followed a pretty similar route round Asia since but hadn’t happened to bump into one another. Just turned out we were heading to Kratie the same day. I waited around for a bit until Puck turned up then we found a guesthouse.

We wandered around town, all of which took around 10 minutes as the place is incredibly small. We decided on our plan of action for the following day which would involve river dolphin spotting. We had had enough of the day so decided to watch a film for the rest of the evening. We watched Argo which was brilliant.

We hired bikes after breakfast to ride around as there is little else to do here. We headed out late morning towards Kampi, where the Irrawaddy dolphins live. It took us just over an hour to get there on pretty poor bikes, on poor roads in the blazing heat. It was too early to go dolphin spotting as late afternoon is considered best time so we got a drink and stared at the river. We could see a few dolphins knocking about which was a positive start.

I started to feel quite unwell as time went on, I had drank a lot of water so it wasn’t de-hydration, just wasn’t good, lacking energy big time. We sat around for about an hour and a half, saw a few people come and go and then decided we’d head out. We had to wait for one more person as they wouldn’t take just the 2 of us.

We headed out into the Mekong onboard the little boat. Unfortunately there were various other boats also on the water and we basically chased the dolphins around the river for an hour. This is not the ideal way to see them as the dolphins don’t like engine noise so move as you get near them. Luckily we ran out of fuel on the way back in. The other boats had already gone in before us. We just floated in the exact spot where we had seen the dolphins from the embankment. It just happened that we were surrounded on both sides by families of 4 it seemed. One of the dolphins did it’s classy squirt water trick which I was hoping to see all along. They aren’t the most active, like a sea dolphin, they don’t jump out of the water so much and we only saw them come up for air really bar the one squirting effort. They also don’t have a massive nose like a regular dolphin which makes the dolphins look quite funny in my opinion, but they are pretty cool and quite rare. I have seen something somewhere saying there was only 74 left in the Mekong, not quite sure how they’d be able to know that but that is what I read.

I was very glad for possibly the first time in my life for something to break down as if it didn’t I think I’d have felt a little disappointed with the dolphin spotting otherwise. The last 10 minutes or so made it worthwhile. We just followed too many other boats, I thought we should have just floated downstream and that way we’d have more chance of seeing them.

After this we cycled back to town. This was incredibly painful, I still wasn’t feeling great and everything started hurting, from my back, to my legs and obviously my arse thanks to the lovely seats. We made it back to the town although in a lot slower time than heading out.

One thing that made both trips quite enjoyable was the kids along the route. All of them, the second they see white people cycling past, run out to the road and shout ‘hello’ at you whilst waving. Some of these kids are maybe 3 years old at most. It’s so cute how they shout to you. It’s like have a support team along the road. I have found so far that Cambodians are possibly the nicest group of people I’ve encountered on my travels.

In the evening we just about managed tea and then watched another film, this time being Django Unchained, another fantastic film. It’s been nice to have a couple film nights and they were needed as Kratie has no nightlife whatsoever.



Days 172 – 174 (Tues 26^th – Thurs 28^th Feb) Banlung, Rattanakiri



So my 3 days in Banlung in North Eastern Cambodia didn’t exactly go to plan. Firstly I was only supposed to be there for 2 days. Secondly I was ill pretty much the entire time hence the extra day staying there. Thirdly, I had one accident and very nearly another.

It took us about 4 hours to get there and we were the only tourists on the only bus going to Banlung that day which shows how few tourists go there. I started to feel ill on the way there. I had bought some tablets for a sore back early on in the morning before we left to make the trip easier. On reading later on side effects can result in having a sketchy stomach, off which I had the entire time there.

We didn’t do too much the rest of the first day. On the Wednesday we did our sightseeing. Banlung has a volcanic crater lake. It said 4km in lonely planet so we decided to walk it. We did however go slightly the wrong way making it nearer 7km in 38 degree heat. It was quite a nice walk through a very dusty path. The lake itself is not at impressive as the pictures make out. From ground level it is simply a lake, from the air it looks sublime.

We walked around some of the lake before I decided to take a dip. I wasn’t feeling too bad in the morning and the swim was quite nice although there were little shrimp nibbling away at me any time I came near the platform. I got changed and we headed back to the guesthouse for a kip. The walk back was not as planned however. I was walking down the lay-by/hard shoulder of the road as pavements don’t really exist to walk on, more for extending houses and parking scooters. From nowhere I got hit by a scooter. From behind the right handle bar hit my left forearm. The girl dropped the bike and slid down the road. I was totally surprised by this seeing the girl slide down the road. People don’t exactly wear safety gear here. I went to see if she was alright and she said sorry. She had cuts and scrapes all over but none were serious which was good. After a minute or so the girl just hopped on her scooter and left. After some food and ice on the arm I got my kip.

After this we headed out to the market to find a tuk tuk to take us to the other sites, being a couple of waterfalls. We ended up with 2 motorbike taxi’s instead. The first waterfall was down a very long dirt road. About half way down from nowhere again, a huge water buffalo charged out of the trees one side of the road, straight across the road and down a lane the other side. This was within inches of hitting our scooter. Puck and her driver were 50m or so behind and her driver said if it had hit us it probably would have killed us. It would have been like getting hit by a train, it had some pace and plenty of power.

I have been away nearly 6 months and had no run ins with injury or anything yet, I haven’t even seen an incident anywhere which I find amazing so to have 2 happen to me in a few hours was unreal. I hope that they are the last incidents I have on my trip, I didn’t particularly like either. On a side note the waterfalls were not that impressive and I started to feel incredibly sore and unwell as the afternoon went on.

I was supposed to leave with Puck in the morning but I couldn’t move and was struggling with serious stomach cramps and pain by this time. I decided not to go and I spent nearly all day in bed. By mid afternoon I had improved so I knew I would be ok to leave tomorrow.



Apologies for the lack of photo's on this one. Dolhpins were too quick and forgot my camera the day out in Banlung. Google Irrawaddy Dolphins or Yeok Laom lake for better pictures than i could have produced



Next – Return to Phnom Penh and moving northwest

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