Kratie-from dolphins and craftspeople to villages and exotic dining.

Kratie is on the main "milkroute"between the border with Laos and the central parts of Cambodia. For many, Kratie town is their first meeting with Cambodia. I was one of them, and i like the atmosphere there. However-the tourist information office had little to say, they impress none. Find your information elsewhere.

Renting a bicycle or a motorbike, is a good idea. I opted for the first-paid a dollar for my bike, and headed for the riverferry crossing over to Koh (meaning island) Trong in the middle of Mekong. Only to see a full ferry leaving in front of my nose. And hour of idleness followed.

Koh Trong is only a kilometer from the town, but the separation from the mainland makes it a world apart. It is timeless, slowpaced countryside with farmald and villages, the houses mostly close to the river. I could only explore parts of the island, some of the trail were submerged by rainy season Mekong, but the rest was nice enough. The villages here are relatively well off-having well kept khmer style houses and often a garden. Some of them laid out more for decoration than harvest. Not commonly seen.

Arrival Koh Trong. 100 meters away is the villagemarket. Above the landingpoint is what seems to be the local hang out place, at least in good weather. There is even a tourist information a few steps from the ferry. They  have a couple of bikes for rent.  Bringing one costs a dollar extra with the ferry-but it wouldn't be fun arriving at the island depending on those few bicycles only to find they already are taken.

Villagehomes. All of them have a year of building sign on the roof. Very many are very new. Here lke other places ive visited in Cambodia. Definitely something is going on nationwide.

Typical are the roofornaments.

A barn with fishing and agricuultural tools leaned against it. Illustrating the three legs of livehood on the island: agriculture, fishing and domestic animals.

A local waterreservoir.

Cattle fashion. Most cows on he island have some form of decoration.

People were out and about. I hanged out with some locals in a makeshift gamblingdenn just beside the trail. Later i stopped by a party of youngsters having their own grillparty. They were grilling fish more or less in the middle of the trail, and had a big fishtrap suspended from a bridge, hoping to catch more. A group of children used the trail as their footballfield.

Others were more busy-tending cattle, processing herbs. Ferrying animalfodder. Repairing riverboats. A woman was burning cut vegetation on a new farmfield-her small children assisting. You start seriously participating at a very young age in Cambodia. There was construction of new fishtraps-and chickencages. And everywhere the same story: friendly and forthcoming people the moment you show interest for what they are up to.

The younger generation chilling.

My next biketour out of Kratie was upriver on the mainland. It is a lot less tranquil-parts of the ride was a dust nightmare-every passing vehicle adding their share to the misery. But i recommend that ride too-it is lot of roadside activities going on. Lot to see and learn. And one of the villages is known for its sticky rice production. A god place to stock up on some extra energy.

Travelling the countryside, offering cold, dustkilling shakes. Heaven for dry throats.

Ice is manufactured in factories and brought to countless small customers.

Dustville!

One of several roadside distilleries. What they make will hardly win any price-but without going into details i can testify: it does the trick, and it makes the hangover.

Mountains of firewood outside a brickfactory. These ultrabasic trucks are commonly seen in the area.

Roadside carpentershop. There are many of them along this road. It is sort of a contradiction that so many superb pieces of furniture and wood art gets born n so simple surroundings-but your four star hotel wooden furniture could very well be born here.

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Along the road is a tranquil templemountain with a meditationcentre. A good place to rest in the shade-and with good view from the top-but it is quite a bit to the top.

Seeking shelter from the midday heat. Smart gy!

Approximately 15 kilometers from Kratie, is the startpoint for todays highlight-dolphinwatching on the Mekong River. Upstream and across the river is a deep water area where irrawaddy dolphins usually stay. In relatively large numbers. I say relatively, because this species is about to disappear. They exist in small, isolated pods in a few countries. In Cambodia and Laos put together there are a maximum of 90 dolphins left. And the number is dropping year by year. They are not actively hunted, but way to often drown in fishingnets-their divingtime is so short they can drown in nets even before fishermen have realized there is a dolphin in it.

approaching the forest where we expect to find dolphins.

The boat slowly advanced upstream and across the river, and we headed into an area of submerged vegetation. Petty soon we got our first sighting of 2 dolphins slowly swimming back and forth. The boat was moored to a treetrunk and the engine switched off. It made them come a it closer, but they were not in the mood for further interaction, and slowly went upstream. Seeing no more dolphins after a while of searching the surface, blinded by the reflecting sunlight, we too went upstream in a slightly different direction. Bingo. No less than 7 dolphins were assembled in one spot. They were a lot more active, and some came within 30 meters of the boat. They were funny to watch-doing the stereotypic syncron swimming and sometimes small leaps.

After a days physical activity, getting back to Kratie's food is good. You can try a lot of different things here-the nehm-spicy raw fish wrapped in bananaleafs, the sticky rice-caled krolan-although it is easier to find along the road. You can pass a manhoodtest by eating bugs, actually i recommend doing it with beer. It exellent for that purpose. Sometimes you find snake and lizzards. One afternoon I had a feast on grilled frog with rice.

The cuisine from hell, way to many will call this. But it is actually good food. But when it comes to snakes, a little care is required: the capture of snakes has a serious ecological consequence, some species face serious trouble because of it. So before heading into a snakemeal, know what you buy.