Fri 20.12.19 - Sat 21.12.19

9.30 am departure on a bus to Kratie a small rural town on the banks of the Mekong River. Long journey not dissimilar to a couple of days ago but much longer....7 1/2 hrs. Some stretches were extremely bumpy so slow going passing pepper plantations, stilt houses, lots of temples and through Kompong Cham which we return to on Sunday. Arrived to a beautiful sunset over Koh Trong Island across the Mekong River, the main reason tourists visit is to see the rare freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins.

Charles knows a local guide (Soda) so the following day he took us on a tuk tuk tour to see his village where 800 families live.. Turns out he teaches French and Khmer at the local school so everyone seems to know him and waved at us. The first stop was to see how rice noodles are made.....fascinating. We visited with his cousins family (who asks lots of questions and seemed fascinated with us), his mother and sister (who is a nurse and runs the local pharmacy) and his grandparents who are 90 and 91 years old. We could hear celebrations close by (an engagement party) so Soda took us along. We were welcomed and joined them for a drink and listened to their karaoke performances. When we were offered food we decided to say our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel. Later Soda picked us up at 3pm (this time in a car) for our trip to Kampot to see the Irrawaddy dolphins. We took a boat to the other side of the Mekong River and with the engine off waited. We were very fortunate over the next hour to see many dolphins. They have a flat nose so very different to other dolphins. On the way back we were chasing the sunset and caught it just before it disappeared. Exhausted after our long and tiring day we had an early dinner and hit the sack