We have arrived in Kratie after a 11 hour bus ride, we where told it would only be a few hours but we had to change just outside Phnom Phen. When we got around an hour outside the town the heavens opened the bus started to leak and the thunder and lightning are still going now, hopefully it will stop for tomorrows dolphin spotting.
Our hostel does not have any hot water and not that nice at all, but it is cheap and the family are friendly! We decided to drop our bags off and go out straight away because it was 5pm and we hadn't eaten all day and Herman was moaning! We ran round the market and found a little place that looked nice we had a nice cold beer and watched the rain. Westerners all running around shrieking and the locals just getting on with their lives – very funny to watch. I had chicken curry and Herman had beef cubes, fried egg and chips with rice! Another beer and off to bed because tomorrow is an important day!!
We got up nice and early and went to another hostel for breakfast of coffee, cheese omelet and French bread (£1.00) and picked up our moped and off we went to look for the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, we decided to just drive all the way up the river towards Krapie rather than paying extra for the boat trip. We drove through hundreds of tiny villages and everyone comes out to wave and shout hello it's really crazy how friendly everyone is my arm was knackered from all the waving I felt like the queen!!
We drove about 10 miles up the river where we had to turn around and fell in the mud because the bike slipped luckily Herman managed to hold the bike up and we didn't fall completely! We stopping lots of times to take pictures and false alarms of oh I saw a dolphin oh maybe not it was a tree stump! We stopped to have a drink just outside where the dolphin boat place is, it was very cute with a few stalls, cows and water buffalo wondering around us. But we had to leave when a guy took a whip to his dog for no apparent reason the poor little thing screamed and ran away. Herman would not let me shout at the guy so I just cried instead! :(
Sadly we did not see any dolphins but we had a great time driving around seeing the villages and farm animals. Normally around 5pm is when the rain starts so we decided to turn back and sure enough 4.00pm came and the heavens opened we quickly jumped off and put on our really attractive floor length clear waterproof jackets with orange and green spots, and drove as quickly as we could.
We returned the bike not too muddy considering we fell in the mud and had a quick cold shower and went to the same hostel we had breakfast in, we shared a pizza and a few beers and ran back to our guest house for another early night!
Up early another cheese omelet and baguette and picked up the bike from the hostel we have been eating at, we went back the same way we went yesterday but decided we had to go on the boat even though it was $9 each. We had the choice of waiting for 3 other people and sharing the price with them but we decided to have a private boat and pay a little more. We drove for about 20 minutes until we got to the deeper water and the driver cut the engine we knew that meant he had seen something so we where looking everywhere and then we heard the blowhole sound!! There he was it was amazing he was so close and then gone again! We waited a few minutes and he started the engine again and we carried on, the river was really quiet only a few boats with people doing there shopping. We went further into the deeper water and the driver cut the engine again and we sat looking around after only a couple of minutes we saw 2 and they swam around the boat for a few minutes but we still didn't get that many good pictures!
When they had gone we floated around and the driver used the oars to move the boat (there are rules on the use of engines and the proximity to the dolphins – I was very pleased the driver stuck to these rules at all times even when we could have chased the dolphin to catch up with them)
we moved on a few feet and 2 appeared probably the same 2 as there are less than 60 left in the world, it was very exciting almost as good as cuddling the pandas!
As we where watching these 2 the rain started and we slowly moved under a big tree until it stopped 5 minutes later, we had been out over an hour so when these 2 disappeared we slowly made our way back.
We didn't see any more on the way back, but when we got off the boat we decided to have a quick drink and sat by the river and then we saw 1 just a few meters from the us!!
After this we made our way slowly back to town (before the rain!) we heard that our next stop at the four thousand islands did not have any cash machines so we knew we had to draw enough money to see us through for the next 5 days, so we stopped at the only cash machine in Kratie but we only had 1 bank card with us so we had to go back to the guest house to get our back up, But obviously the rain started on the way back we just had time to buy our stamps for the postcards which cost a fortune and where the biggest stamps I have ever seen!
So we decided to drop the bike off and go to the cash machine before we leave tomorrow morning.
We had some dinner and Herman used the internet because only a few days without and he gets all itchy!
Herman later decided that he didn't want to leave it until the morning just in case something went wrong so he went to find a tuk tuk but the restaurant guy and moped owner just handed over his keys again and told us to take it – how nice is that?
So with the money sorted we went back to finish packing and have an early night.