Let's talk about Kratie.

[WARNING. There was a surprisingly long blog amounts worth of thoughts to write about Kratie, so brace yourself or read in a few separate sittings. Apologies, dutiful reader from possibly over the past 8 months...]

Here we go again! Strolling down memory lane.
I left you last in Phnom Penh, with thoughts of a morning bus to Kratie - home of the last Irrawaddy river dolphins.
We woke up (in spite of our non-existent wake up call... thank goodness for KG's calculator/alarm watch!) and hurried downstairs for some breakfast before bus arrival. After ordering, a mini-bus arrived to take us to the bus station... we tried to cancel our orders through the language barrier, but KG was handed his muesli, fruit and yogurt and urged to eat it instead. He shoved it into his mouth while the other minibus passengers waited. Strangely enough, he insists it was the best meal he ate in Southeast Asia. As he rushed onto the minibus and we finally began to roll out, he realized he'd left his shoes (you've got to slip them off outside the hotel.) He narrowly escaped traveling through Cambodia barefoot.
The minibus took us to the station, where a man asked us which bus we were looking for. We told him, "Kratie". (Pronounced something more akin to Krotch-ay). He informed us, "Bus go already! Go back to hotel." ".....Kratie?" "Bus go already!" "..........but.... it shouldn't leave for another 15 minutes....Kratie?" "No. Go tell hotel." We threw each other nervous glances, wondering if we should give up, 'stay flexible' and go back to where we'd come from. As a
last effort, we showed him our tickets and pointed desperately at the words. "Ah. Kratie. Bus right here." Holy. Moly. We wiped the sweat off our brow and hopped on. I hopped back off to buy a mystery meat pocket from a vendor, which was unfortunately an unsuccessful purchase.
We rode through the countryside, passing the stilt homes and farms of the villagers. No towns for miles, no electricity or running water.. such a different life from the city. Seems so peaceful and relaxing - family time and farming.

When we arrived in Kratie (some 6 or so hours later, if I remember correctly) we wandered the dusty streets along the riverside comparing the few central accommodations.
Once we made our first arrangements, we discovered the room to which we were given a key was swarmed with hundreds upon hundreds of mosquitoes, and no protective net comfortably hanging over the bed. I'm not certain it has been previously blogged of extensively, but my traveling companion was constantly convinced he was about to be attacked my Malaria Mosquitoes or one containing Dangerous Dengue.

Many Mosquito Minor Mishap

After he realized he'd have no peace and many heart palpitations in our current room, he went to inquire after a new one. Quite an awkward embarrassing task for our type -- especially since the village folk were so kind and hoped we'd be pleased with their room. We were offered a new key, which we used to discover a room in similar condition. We made our peace for the night and ventured out to the Mekong River.

 

We sat on these steps and enjoyed the serenity of the sunset over the Mekong. Kratie is such a quiet, peaceful place. After a few beautiful moments of silent pondering, we were approached by this young fellow:

We gathered his name was "Nee". He had a low gravely voice and spoke no English - we had left our phrasebook in the hotel room. Nonetheless, we became fast friends, and he soon led us down to the water.. where he proceeded to de-robe to his underoos and hop into the refreshingly cool (and notoriously polluted) river.

 

We decided "to hell with it", and followed suit. (Planning to shower soon after).

We tried to say goodbye to him and head to lunch and further exploring, but he didn't intend to part so soon. We were pleased to have the company, though we began to feel suspicious glances from villagers on the sidewalk. We took him to a riverside vendor, and he ordered "Balut" (a Cambodian egg delicacy). As he cracked it open and began to eat inside, he offered me a taste (which I began to accept, soon realizing the fully formed chick was inside, feathers, beak and all). KG taught him "slaps" and we had a merry time together.

He didn't eat much of his chick egg and we were hoping for a change of clothes at the hotel, so we started to walk in the general direction. He followed along, teasing, scaring and hugging us along the way. When we arrived at the hotel entrance, he seemed to have no inclination to wait for us outside, so I ran in on my own for a change while KG raced him in the lot. We then proceeded to wander the village with him, realizing we weren't sure how or when we should disengage from our new found friend. We ended up wandering toward an outdoor restaurant, and Nee stopped and sat on the curb frowning at us miserably until we insisted he come sit with us. We sat and enjoyed each others company late into the evening, creating many fun games sans language (this one I'd title something like, "Guess which cap is hiding the straw wrapper after I mix them up"):

We were still noticing a lot of hostile glances towards our table from the locales, and we began to uneasily wonder why. What was so wrong with being the young foreign couple playing with the local boy? Something seemed to be.
It was getting late and we were fairly exhausted, so we started to trudge back towards the hotel with our little friend following behind. Once we arrived at the entrance, we attempted to disengage. It proved quite difficult. He tried his best to continue with us to whatever our next destination would be, until we eventually convinced him to give a final hug, wave, and depart alone. We wondered if we'd see him the next morning, or where he was headed for the night as we entered our mosquito home. KG proceeded his routine of taping all windows and doors to prevent further mosquito infestation, and sprayed our entire bodies with mosquito-killing-chemicals before bed. As we lay staring at the ceiling, KG mused aloud two options of Nee's story: 1. Could he be one of the many Cambodian child prostitutes? Was he hugging and touching and following us to our hotel room for horrifying reasons? Was that why the village threw hatred at us with each glance? We felt awful for even considering this as a realistic option and shook it off. Number 2. Could he be the village hoodlum boy that always befriends the young foreigners? Who knew where he was or what his life was like day to day.

The next morning we switched hotels to above the restaurant we'd eaten dinner at the night previously. Since we had seen their room before and not taken it, they didn't seem too pleased with us upon our change of opinion. One family member told us "No. All full." Before another admitted "Many rooms upstairs." Our room was pleasing enough -- no sheet on the bed, but no mosquitoes and a private bathroom is good enough for us tonight.
We walked the dusty streets to a riverside restaurant recommended in our travel guide. When we sat down with our menus, we read "The Joe Story" page, all about the owner... from Chicago. We began to take in the decor, and I noticed a calendar for sale -- proceeds going to the rare local dolphins. The Calendar was titled "Dolphin Men of Kratie" and each month featured a different Beautiful Beaming Cambodian Boy in his underwear. I pointed this out to my travel companion joking, "Wouldn't it be funny if it was owned by an aging flamboyantly gay man from boys town?" Enter Joe. He was!
We approached him and discussed the differences in lives across the globe - and how insanely cold it was back home (the giant snowstorm that closed down Lakeshore Drive happened only a couple days prior). He was very nice, and is surely an interesting man with a lot of interesting stories. It felt so insane to talk to a fellow Chicagoan in the most rural, far out, dusty little village in Cambodia.
We eat breakfast and venture out for bicycles on which to ride to the dolphins.

The first place, on the dirt streets in the market across the way, had many bikes out front. As we requested two of them, it quickly became evident there would be no successful verbal communication. After we pointed out our choices, they filled the tires with air and affixed the missing pedals. After a thorough check on both bikes, the man and woman wrote on a calculator the price they'd like for the two bikes: "200,000". We calculated this on the trusty watch affixed to KG's wrist. $50? There must be an extra zero typed in. KG took the calculator and typed in 20,000. The man shook his head. He typed "200,000." It dawned on us they were trying to sell us the bikes, not rent them out for the day as we'd usually found and assumed. We briefly discussed the situation and decided the best course of action was to shake our heads, bow, and run away. So we did.

We then swiftly successfully (with our hearts heavy and full of guilt from seeing the confused and distraught faces of the previous salespeople) rented bikes from our guesthouse for $2.
We were off to the dolphin village.
The bike ride was much further than we'd anticipated (we never did well converting kms to miles..) but it was a fascinating journey. Soon enough we got away from any semblance of the town with the guesthouses, riverside stands and sidewalks. We rode into the heart of the village -- all stilt housing down the dirt roads in the jungle on the river.. no electricity, no stores near, no nothing. So peaceful. Outside of what seemed like almost every house, were at least a few little ones... they'd spot us, grin and wave shouting "ELLO!!!" each time we'd go by them, without fail. One little voice after another we'd respond to with a friendly "Hello!!" in return. When we got unbelievably hot and exhausted (and there were no houses nearby) we dipped in the river for a second of relief.
Halfway or so through the village is a temple on a giant hill. We decided to climb the numerous steps and take a peek. We paused at a house with a cooler of cold drinks for sale outside -- we pet their puppy, said hello to the children and bought a Coke and a Red Bull. Mind boggling location to purchase each. We climbed with our caffeinated beverages up the many steps to the hilltop temple. It was a peaceful view into the trees:

We finished our drinks, climbed down and continued on our way. We had a deadline -- I read the shy river dolphins are most likely to pop out around 2-3pm.




















When we arrived near the dolphin boat area, we stopped at the market/watering hole location indicated on the map from our guest house. We wandered down a steep hill among hundreds of Cambodians, the market was bustling leading closer to the water. We bought a sugar cane juice (yum, say I) and headed to towards the crowd. At the waters edge was an intimidatingly long and crowded line across planks over the water towards the swimming hole. As we waited in line (the only tourists for miles) we started to feel eyes that seemed to say, "This is our watering hole, what are you doing here? Really? Go see the dolphins." Then they asked us for something in Khmer, (tickets of some kind it seemed) so we ran away awkwardly to see the dolphins. Times like those you wish you spoke Khmer.

We parked our bikes, locked them up and approached the counter at which to buy dolphin-seeing-tickets. A German couple was buying tickets as well and the price was knocked down if we went together, so we did. (They are apparently living in Saigon these days and don't seem to like it much. Past that they didn't say much not in German.) On the boat you are told to stay quiet so as not to scare the shy dolphins. My heart raced and I suddenly realized it was one of the most thrilling things I'd ever (or perhaps will ever) do.
Not all boats on the water were full of quiet passengers, and when any of the boats turned on their motors to get going to a new viewing area of the river, the entire area filled with ugly polluted sounding groans. But in between the groans, it was the most serene and profound scene I'd experienced.
[There was a video clip here, which apparently is not uploading correctly. Check back at a later date to see if I've fixed it!]
The shy dolphins didn't usually pop up for long, but we certainly got many thrilling moments as they briefly surfaced around us.

 

After our viewing trip expired, I lingered in the area in awe, exhilaration and pure joy. What a moment.

I bought a small dolphin carving for something around $1 (I should have bought more and asked about the bigger beautiful carvings they had) and we headed back for the bikes.
Then the awakening to reality: our bike lock holding them locked to the gate seemed to be, of course, broken. We had no way of a "ride" back, and walking was certainly out of the question. The bike trip itself would take 2 hours. We struggled and struggled with our lock, hearts pounding faster and faster. A local man chatting in the group of security type men came over to show us how it's done. Unfortunately, he couldn't do it either. All of his friends erupted into laughter and he laughed in spite of himself right along with them. Each of the 4 men took their turn attempting to free our transit. How does this intense adventure end?! One of them eventually did it, and we all broke into applause and grinned at each other as we finally hopped on and rode for the town.

Biking back through the villages home, a motorbike ran into me and nearly broke off my kick stand as I fell but caught myself before I hit the ground. The young couple looked at me and giggled outrageously as they sped off. I was None. Too. Pleased.
There were a few young villagers (often early teenage years or younger) on their families motorbikes with friends driving down the deserted village dirt path with intimidating speed and abandon.

When we arrived as darkness fell, we decided to bike a bit further, to the houses on the outskirts of the town and through the market streets. It was a lovely end to a supremely unique and amazing day.
We returned the bikes (we didn't wait around to see if they found the damaged kickstand) and fell into bed, preparing ourselves to awake and head towards Siem Reap and the Temples of Angkor.