Kratie (Cambodia)

When you travel, you meet people. Some you chat for a few minutes, some a bit longer, some you end up traveling (I did that a fair few times when I was traveling by myself). When we were ordering some coffee at a street stand in Siem Reap, we start talking to a family with 2 kids around Andrew and Emma’s age, a Canadian mum and a French dad! They are doing a gap year traveling: just like us, except that they have done 6 months already. We got along well, so we exchange contact details and on Sunday evening, after our lazy day, we end up having dinner together. It was super fun chatting and exchanging tips and stories! This is one of the parts I love about traveling. The people you meet; it is usually not for very long but it is almost always really good. The kids (after a few minutes of shyness) had a lot of fun with the 2 kids and all we could hear were giggles and laugh from their end of the table!
Anyway, the next day was travel day again. We took a bus to Kratie, a small town toward the East of the country, which is famous for the Irrawaddy dolphins. This was around 6 hours bus trip, not super comfortable but not horrible either! Our guesthouse is the nicest one we had so far.
After unpacking, we took a walk in the town but it looks like one of the main street (the one we took) is being redone and all we could see for a long while was dust, roadworks and no pathway and no small food business either (which are normally everywhere!). So we walked back toward the more touristic area to get some food and then back to the room for our weekly movie night (thanks to good Wifi)!
On Tuesday, we took a Kayak tour on the Mekong River. We saw some underwater forest. As the river is low at the moment, we could see the top of the trees and paddle between them, that was pretty cool! We also saw some watermelon growing on sand island. Yep, watermelon growing in sand!!! And we tried one, it was delicious!
And of course, we were very lucky to see some dolphins. There are only 105 Irrawaddy dolphin left in the world and they are in the Mekong River. Those types of dolphins are pretty shy and have no nose like the sea dolphin. Their faces are more round. There are very few left, because of dynamite fishing done in the past. Those methods aren’t use anymore, so maybe they will be able to grow their population again.
It was magic to see the dolphins popping around (not too close as they are very shy) and to hear the ’Pshhh’ of their breathing.
I have to say, that my arms were jelly by the time we finished as we paddle for around 11 km. I was with Andrew in the kayak, and he really impressed me! He paddled a lot and very well.
After that, we had a bit of a rest!
The next day, we rest a fair bit, as Kev is still not 100%. Nothing much happened. The only thing we did in the afternoon, was going to see a temple around 15 minutes drive from the city, Phnom Sombok. It is a lovely temple with a million steps!!! Lots of statues and a really calm atmosphere. I really enjoyed this temple.
The next day, we went to a small island on the Mekong River, just across Kratie. The island is called Koah Trong. We rented some bikes and went around the island. It was nice and relaxing and lovely couple of hours (despite Emma having a couple of stacks! She is fine though).
We are now doing the blog and won’t do much this afternoon. And tomorrow we are on the way back to Phnom Penh for a couple of days before going to our next country Thailand!!
Mel

19.1.2025. Lazy blog day. Pack for next destination.
We met a family when we were getting coffee. Found out they're doing the same as us, but 6 months in. We exchanged details and decided to have dinner with them. All 4 kids are close in age and after 20mins of silence they were talking and eventually playing up. They have done a couple countries on our list already, so we got some insights. We will all be in Laos at some point, maybe we'll see them again maybe not.
20.1.2025. Bus trip to Kratie. Pronounced Krah-Cheh. Fun getting tickets when you don't pronounce names right. Got picked up from the guesthouse by Tuktuk, dropped off at a “bus stop”. The “bus”, which was an 11 seater I think (got 19 in there including 2 babies). One person had a motorbike, plus a lot of bags from everyone. What the driver did with the bike and bags on the back of this “van” was a work of art. Didn't notice when we first started but he even had tyres pilled in there. There is a picture I took which will be on Facebook or attached to the blog. We even had packages around our feet. Highlight of the trip? About 4 hours into the trip, there's this box in the aisle next to Andrew. Pretty ordinary looking box, nothing unusual. It started crowing, bloody rooster in a box in the middle of the bus! At first I thought someone had an amusing ringtone, then it dawned on me. The bus as a collective had a good chuckle. Ah Cambodia, full of surprises. We walked around Kratie for a couple of hours, checking the place out. Had dinner and went back to the guesthouse. Wifi is great here, so movie night (my neighbour Totoro, kids first studio Ghibli).
21.1.2025. Early start, upstairs for a morning briefing then set off in the back of a truck. What are we doing? Kayaking the Mekong River. We travelled around 11klm down the river. Stopping at one point on a sandy bank where a local was growing watermelon in the sand. Quick swim, sticky rice and black beans in bamboo (kids love it), bananas and some of the guys watermelon and we're off again. Travelling with the current, slipping between small islands and trees. Navigating some small rapids and rocks. Then came out into a wide open area, to find…. Dolphins!! Mekong River dolphins. I had Emma with me and Mel had Andrew. Andrew as always paddled from start to finish, the boys battery never runs out. I had Emma cause apparently I'm the stronger kayaker. She surprised me today, yes she had breaks, yes I heard my “my arms are tired” quite a few times. But there was no complaining, no “I don't wanna do this anymore”. She pushed through and paddled way more than I thought she would. Both my kids made me proud today. These are the experiences that make the trip worthwhile. To see you children grow to a challenge not shrink away from it. Made my day more than the dolphins did. Now here we sit, in our air-conditioned guesthouse resting and writing our blogs. Our guide is off again to take more people down the river, and I'm thinking about having a nap.
22.1.2025. Spent another night going from bed to dunny, bugger all sleep. Did some stuff early on in the day then back to the room where I slept for a few hours. Bought some drugs from the chemist, then took a Tuktuk to a temple. Stairs, lots of bloody stairs and more monkeys. We were heading up the first set of stairs when our driver sang out and handed us a length of bamboo. For the monkeys he says, great. Anyway no incidents, just tired legs at the bottom.
23.1.2025. Hopped on the ferry and headed over to an island. Rented some bikes and off we went. Emma had about 4 stacks, other than that pretty uneventful. Saw a big tree, lots of chickens, dogs and cows. Visited a tiny temple at the tip of the island and saw a snake. Dunno what type, the slithery scary type. Kids played in the sand while we waited for the ferry back to the mainland. Soon as we got back straight into the shower. Now resting again, blogging again and soon packing again. Back to Phnom Penh tomorrow.
Kev

On Sunday, after we wrote our blog we went out for dinner, with some friends we met while we were waiting for coffee. The sad thing about that was there was a chance we may never see them again, but the good thing about that night was that Eva and I spent all night laughing at what Andrew and Owen were doing. On Monday we went on this long boring bus that lasted six hours (with food and drink stops.) We went all the way to Kratie from Siem Reap. Then we just had a rest. I think the bus was very very very very very very very very very very boring. The next day we went on a kayak looking for dolphins and we saw lots and lots of them. From what I saw they had a round head and made funny noises like ppsshh. We spent most of the day cruising around the river. We spent most of the next day at the hotel because dad was sick but after that we went out to a temple. The temple had lots of stairs and lots of monkeys. I hated how many stairs there was but otherwise I liked it. The next day, we went on a boat to an island and rode bikes around the island. My butt was aching by the time it ended and it still is. After that we just came back in the room writing our blog.
Bye see ya.
Emma (8 years old)

On the 19th, after I wrote my blog, we went to see a family that we met before, the kids were crazy it was fun. We went to a nice restaurant I had food, Emma had food to we all had food it was nice and then, we went crazy laughing telling stupid stories inventing stories. I all so invented something called, drum roll please, THE FIRE SLIDE. It is a slide made out of easy to burn metal that continuously pours oil down and then someone lights it with a lighter and people slide down it while it’s burning it very crazy invention. The slide is made out of easy to burn metal because people will slide down melting metal. I AM CRAZY (Mum edit: I assume this was a story they were telling with the other kids!). After that we went back to the hotel.
On the 20 th we went on an extremely long bus it was going to Kratie it was boring and long it was six hours I nearly died by boredom, I only survived because of my kindle it is a device that I can read on. I don’t have much to talk about, not very much happened. When we got there, we walked around for a while, there are lots of long streets. After that we went home.
On the 21st we went on a kayak to see dolphins, the river was calm and a few little rapids we didn’t see any fish but we saw dolphins. We also went to a sand island it was very fun I slid down the side of the sand island because it was very steep, when we left the sand island I raced the other people kayaking,
it turns out I’m pretty good at kayaking because I won. The dolphins that we saw were pretty shy they just came up a bit then went down but they were really cool. When we went home, we ate dinner and went to the hotel.
On the 22nd we did not do much we stayed at the hotel most of the day playing on my computer but at the end of the day we went to a temple. It had lots of stairs and monkeys and there was about a million statues, I can’t explain it, after that we went home.
On the 23rd we went to an island that had lots of trees and huge beaches, there were also lots of animals as well like, chickens, cows, and dogs. We hired some bikes to ride around the island, there were also huge trees but surprisingly no monkeys. When we went back to the beach to wait for the ferry to go back to main land I built a little dam in a little river running to the ocean.
Then we went on the ferry we went back to main land we went to the hotel.
The end
Andrew (9years old)Læs mere