The next morning we got up early and arranged for Balcony to get us some bikes for the day, they do a rental at $1.50 a day. We knew we could get them cheaper in town but couldn’t find the man who was recommended to us so opted for the guesthouse ones. To be fair they were two of the best city bikes we’ve yet had on our travels. Our destination was to head north up the river towards the Kampi Rapids and see if we could spot any of the rare Irrawaddy Dolphins along the way. It took around an hour to get to the main viewing point on this part of the Mekong, however if we wanted to sit and watch the dolphins from the land we would have to pay $6 each and if we wanted to get a boat $10 each. We decided we didn’t want to spend this kind of money and opted for a little further up the road where we could stand and watch some of the rare dolphins rise to the surface. They don’t have a lot of space in this pool and there are around 90 dolphins there at the moment so if you hang around long enough they have to come up for air eventually!! Many people opt for the boat tour option but you can only get upto 100 meters from the dolphins, if you’re a keen spotter then we’d say do it.

Moving on from this point we cycled for a further 5 minutes or so and landed at the Kampi Rapids, a local bathing spot. We had been told about this place the day before and thought it would be worth checking out. The local community have built long wooden huts built on stilts, sitting around half a meter above the river level. They appear to be sectioned off so that each family who works there has a strip to rent out for those of us wanting to relax for the afternoon. The locals use it as a popular bathing and meeting place, families gather together, splash around in the rapid-like current, eat food cooked by the hut owners, sit around and drink, sleep in hammocks and so on. It’s more of a place for them to relax and take time out from work. We paid a dollar each to have our own little space in the huts and we both had a hammock to relax and read on. The owner of our plot kept pestering us to buy some food but we decided to wait until around midday to leave and get some grub at a nearby recommended family run restaurant. Before leaving we bathed our feet in the water, read our books and Helen practised some yoga, it was starting to get a little busier as we left at midday. The restaurant is just as you walk out of the rapids area on the left hand side, we didn’t pay much and each had noodles and stir-fried vegetables, an in-offensive meal that is a little bland.

On our way back to Kratie we stopped off at a temple on the mountain…a mountain that is all of 93m high!! They do have some warped ideas as to scale over here, but it is the highest point in the area so we were a little rewarded by views and bizarre hell vs heaven like paintings in the temples. Back in Kratie we organised our transport to Laos for the next day, we booked a minivan for $14 each which would fingers crossed take us all the way to Don Det at the 4000 Islands with a few en-route transport changes.

One night left in Cambodia, we will go away with fond memories of this beautiful country having both had a wonderful and heart warming experience here.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

The bus was due to depart from Siem Reap at 6am and we were informed to be at the ticket office for 5.30am. We arrived on time and several other travellers were waiting for the bus which was a medium sized coach but enough room for everyone on board, even if the bags were all thrown on the backseats! We paid $8 each for our tickets which was the cheapest we could find to Kratie with a change of buses in Kompong Cham, Doug and Emma were heading for Ban Lung and had to pay $19 each for the VIP bus, hotel pickup and a breakfast. It started in the usual way, drive around the area for at least an hour picking up passengers and packages to transport and then finally one last stop, it was to pick up Emma and Doug from a tuk-tuk, two hours later than they should have set off on the coach. Maybe the bus at Kompong Cham will be a VIP bus we thought!?

After 5 hours we arrived in Kompong Cham for our next bus connection and to all head off in different directions. The bus never materialised, either it left before we arrived or was non-existent, so we had to hassle the “travel coordinator” from our bus about what to do as the station office was no use and the bus driver had no inclination of trying to help. He arranged for us to go with another bus company on the other side of town, so the bus dropped us there. We would have to wait for 2.5 hours until the bus arrived so most of the stranded passengers (about 8 of us) headed for some food, fried rice with beef or noodles was pretty much the only option. Helen wasn’t feeling too good so she had plain boiled rice.

Finally a bus arrived, which incidentally looked pretty swanky, and we were informed we were all on the bus as it would stop at Kratie and then proceed up to Ban Lung. However there were not enough seats or luggage space in the hold on the coach so 5 people had to sit on their bags in the isle. Luckily people disembarked fairly quickly at random stops along the way so we all got seats within the hour. After a long journey we finally arrived at Kratie with an ounce of sunlight left in the sky and we found our preferred option for accommodation, the Balcony Guest House, over looking the Mekong River. Success, they had rooms with shared bathroom for $5. The room at the front of the building with a double bed was very large and had a huge ceiling with fan, it felt very Mediterranean in style and we loved the 70′s retro concrete building. We didn’t go far that evening and opted for some food from the Balcony’s restaurant which was pretty nice (real Heinz Baked Beans we think!!), but a bit overpriced for the portion sizes we received, washed down with some homemade Ginger Ale which tasted pretty boozy!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)