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Published: December 17th 2009
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weve headed north this time to another few places we had'nt been before. First stop was Kratie pronunced kracheh, sleepy little town on the bank of the mekong.. it had amazing sunsets and was our base to go see the Irrawady dolphins. we took a small boat up the river to a protected area and was actually suprised too see quite a few. probally the same ones over and over again its quite hard to tell when there under water.. theres only 75 left in the whole of cambodia. they are very strange looking for dolphins.. unlike flipper they have a stubbed nose, big black eyes and a huge smile as well! local folk law has it that a young girl was to be married to the snake king but she refused killed herself and the ghost of her body floated down to the river and became the dolphin..
after we headed further north to Ratanikiri province, coverd in mountains and forrests it differs abit from the south as its cooler and the jungles less humid resembling more of a dense woodland.. also the was NO leeches which made it soo much better!
we visted a crater lake in
an extinct volcanoe full of crystal clear water and surrounded to the very edge by forrest! it was a beautiful place very quite (except for the splashes) and we actually ended up goin the twice. we saw a couple of waterfalls as well and rode on mopeds for two hours on the craziest road youve ever seen. not that we could see anything thorugh the clouds of red dust (cambodia snow is what they call it) which coats everything inlcuding your eyes and lungs! but it was nice when we got there..
Got talked into going on another trek and with the promise of an absense of leechs i couldnt say no.. we walked for 3 days spending one night in the jungle in hammockjs and the other at a meeting hall (big hut) at a krung village. in this area there are lots of minorities who speak different langueages and tend to keep to themselves.. we were lucky as the day we got there they were preparing to go to a town close by to show there traditional dances.. so we got to see a practice of that and then another at night which was around a fire
with drums. its was pretty national geographic.. saw 7 shooting stars that night which is a record, the night sky was by far the best ive seen in asia, apparently the human eye can see 5,000 stars now i didnt count but i think it was pretty close! also the large amount of rice wine was tending to blur my vision by the end of the night! it only takes a week to ferment and you drink it out of ceraminc pots with bamboo straws its hardy stuff..
so actually had a pretty peacefull week in the north. back in the capital now regrouping and then headiont to the beach for a swim before christmas its still about 35 degrees here and its hasn't rained once in the last 5 weeks! ha!
oh and merry christmass to everyone i wont get to see this year!
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