So on we went to Kratie, and what a fantastic example of the South-East Asian bus systems! Up at 5.45am (which I'm actually quite capable of these days, a fact that I know will surprise many of my previous travel buddies, to whom I had to delegate the job of getting me out of bed for things!), to get the 7.00am bus. An eight hour journey, so should be there not long after lunch; excellent, plenty of time to find a decent guesthouse. It was late, of course, and not a bus, but actually a minibus, which dropped us at the door of a tour operator in the centre of Siem Reap five minutes after picking us up. OK, no worries, rounding us up, that makes sense. And our bags were duly switched to a full size bus already waiting there for us. Which left half an hour later, at about 8.00am. Ten minutes later, we pulled into Siem Reap's main bus station, about seven or eight kilometres east of the centre (and about five kilometres from our guesthouse, which was in that same direction). Bags unloaded, and onto a third bus. Good stuff. Another short wait, and we were off again. 8.30am. We got up at 5.45am to get a half eight bus five kilometres from where we were staying! An awesome display of organisation, let me shake you by the hand, the Cambodian bus system! And did bus number three run all the way to Kratie? No, of course it didn't! Some time after lunch, we pulled into a random bus station, unloaded our bags, loaded them onto another bus (and have you noticed, as you're unexpectedly asked to hop from one bus to another, that the quality of buses never increases), waited for half an hour, and pulled away again. We stopped one further time to repair a flat tyre, and rolled into Kratie just before dark. British Rail is comparably efficient. But hey, it's all good fun, and better than a day in the office, we always remind ourselves!

But it was worth the wait, as Kratie is a fantastic little town, on a lovely, picturesque stretch of the Mekong (and with amazing sunsets over the river!). And it is little, Kratie, "capital" of Kratie Province. Is it just me, or does the word "capital" conjure up images of presence, authority and activity? Well, not anymore, as we've now been to about five provincial capitals in Cambodia and Laos, and they've all had about the size and pace of your average south coast, Sussex retirement village!

Paula, Sara, fifty or so ants and myself shared a very average room, with more than a slight odour of drains when the bathroom door was left open, but at two dollars apiece (accounting for ants being subsidised by humans), we weren't disappointed. It did the job, and there was a nice chill-out area / restaurant on the ground floor, with free wifi and cheap beer.

As I said, though, the area was fantastic, and if we hadn't started a routine of cramming in activities and speeding on at that point, I'm sure Paula and I would have stayed at least twice as long as the couple of days we did stop there. According to Joe from Chicago, who ran the Red Sun Falling Cafe (and who bucked the trend of older Western expat hooking up with young, local girl, by opting for a young local fellow instead), and I may be slightly out with these dates, he was the first expat, arriving in 2003, Kratie only became reachable by road in about 2005, and got its first ATM last year. And this rate of development is evident in the town's present form, with a mere smattering of tourists, a couple of things set our for visitors to do, and otherwise a very authentic, local, working community. Definitely not somewhere to stop for those travellers who want things like ice-creams, postcards and coffee whitener (obviously we were after the latter, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it!).

On our first day, we took the local ferry across to Koh Trong, a sandbar island in the middle of the Mekong, right opposite Kratie. I say ferry, it was like a big, old, wobbly canoe, finely balanced by people sitting strategically on opposite edges, that fortunately only had about two hundred metres to cover. But it got us across (albeit soaking my backside in the process), so no complaints! And I saw a couple of locals brave transporting their motorbikes via this ferry crossing, so I guess it must be pretty reliable. A short hike across the extensive sands, in part paved with bamboo matting, and we got to the main part of the island, where we picked up some bikes at a dollar each, and headed off on a loop around the island. Still geniunely rural, despite its proximity to Kratie town, with horses and carts, trackside haystacks, and farmers carrying hoes and other traditional tools to and from the fields, it seemed miles away from where we'd just got onto the boat, and we had a really nice day, just meandering around the island and taking it all in.

Day two, again on bikes, and we cycled ten or fifteen kilometres up the coast to Kampi, the best spot on the Mekong to catch a glimpse of the rare Irawaddy dolphins (a particular treat for dolphin lover Sara, who even has one tatooed on her shoulder!). Which we managed to with ease, several times, from the boat we hired to take us out looking for an hour. Not very sociable, the Irawaddies, so no Flipper-esqe chattering from a couple of yards or head tennis, but we caught plenty of glimpses of them from ten to thirty yards, surfacing in arcs to pick up some air. We then headed a but further up the coast again, and found a sandy island, reachable via a rickety bridge over some small rapids, where we stopped for a swim on the far side, away from the eyes of locals (not that I'd mind them seeing my semi-naked flesh taking a dip, but their conservative culture, at least in that respect, frowns upon my skin being overly visible). A brief stop that included an amusing double-take moment, as I was swimming back to where Paula and Sara were sitting, when I looked across to the riverside and realised that despite my best breaststroking efforts, I was still moving backwards with the current.

To be honest, though, the pleasure we derived from both days was as much from drifting through the general Mekong countryside as it was from what we set out to ultimately see or do. People were nearly all friendly, and indifferent at worst, and I always find the little language barrier traversing connections that one makes from time to time warming. The little boy who was struggling to put a flagpole up in the wind, who thrived on the teamwork as he tied it to a post while I held it in place, and the lady herding her cattle along the road, which I stopped and rode behind for a while instead of overtaking, who, with a massive grin, thwacked me lightly on the back with her stick, as if I were one of her animals. It makes me feel less like I'm in a different world, just making leaps from designated tourist spot to designated tourist spot, without ever engaging with real people. And hopefully it works the other way around too, making us seem a bit more real, and less like rich, white aliens! I'm not preaching, but the benefits of just learning "hello" and "thank you", which we always endeavour to do when crossing borders, can't be underestimated (although it does amuse me when kids occasionally come out with "hello, how are you", in that not actually questioning / wanting to know the answer kind of way, which reminds me of the business game I used to play back home, where anything but "good" as an answer would meet confusion and awkwarness!).

Anyway, that covers our two days in Kratie (and more, as usual - sorry!). Next stop, the wild, north east province of Ratanakiri, where we went seeking jungle and adventures!

Oh, and one final thing, I finally finished a book at Neildy pace - just two days! Helped by our long, multi-bus journey from Siem Reap, mind you, but also its addictive, easy to read nature. "Run" by Jeff Abbot. If it was a film, it'd have Keanu Reeves in it, a Gene Hackman-esque bad guy, a great soundtrack, and zero Oscar nominations. Excellent entertainment.