November 4, 2012
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Kratie
Before we could actually go to Kratie, we had to go back to Phnom Penh since there were no direct buses from Kampot. We planned on staying one night in Phnom Penh and then taking off for Kratie in the morning. Things didn’t exactly go as planned. We got to PP in the early evening and went back to the same guesthouse we stayed in last time. We met an English guy (he was an interesting guy. Dreadlocks down to his back, kind of mousey looking and every statement he made was followed by the word “man”.) through a woman from LA who was on the same path as we were. We ended up deciding to go get some happy pizza (when in PP, right?) and 50 cent draughts. They definitely didn’t skimp on that magic oregano that they were using. After a few more drinks we headed back to the guesthouse and up to the rooftop bar. We slept VERY well that night, so well in fact, we missed our 10:45am bus to Kratie. It’s not like we went to bed super late or anything either, my guess is it was the happy pizza. You may wonder why I would think that, and the answer is simple. When we finally woke up at 11am, Kiel and I were both still…”happy”. Since we missed the bus, we decided to make our way back over to the royal palace to try to get in one more time. Once again, didn’t happen. The front of the palace was filled with people mourning the passing of their former king. It was quite a sight to see. Still feeling “happy”, we weren’t discouraged from exploring and headed over to the national museum. It was awe-inspiring to see the quality of the stone carvings from over 1,000 years ago. Really awe-inspiring to think they did it all by hand and chisel. We wandered a little bit more through the streets over the course of the day, then headed back to make sure we got to bed early enough that sleeping in wouldn’t happen again. The next day we made our bus! We arrived in Kratie with just enough time to take a Tuk-Tuk out to the Mekong to see the Irrawaddy dolphins. There are about 7,000 of these dolphins in the world (most in Bangladesh) and about 80 of them in the stretch of river near Kratie. We had a boat to ourselves, which was pretty cool, take us out to see them breaching in a narrow section of the river. We must’ve seen about 20 of them, which is astonishing considering how few there are in the river. After watching the dolphins rise and fall into the Mekong with a beautiful sunset as the backdrop, we headed back to shore. We didn’t end up doing much of anything that night since we had a long drive to get to Laos in the morning and honestly, there is nothing to do in Kratie besides see the dolphins. So with fond memories, it was time to say goodbye to Cambodia.
