We left Ban Lung in the morning for Kratie. The journey didn't seem as bad this time as it had the night we arrived in Ban Lung. I think we must have had a mini bus with zero suspension that day. We arrived in Kratie about lunch time and decided to go to the same restaurant we'd been at for dinner during the stop on that awful journey. When we were there previously we'd seen that they also have rooms on offer so thought we would check them out. A man followed us all the way there, telling us he knew nice places that we could stay. Regardless of how many times we told him we neither needed or wanted his help, he still followed us. Wanting some unearned commission I'm sure. In an attempt to lose him we told him we would be having lunch at the restaurant before we did anything else. He decided he would just sit and wait for us and eventually the guest house caved and gave him commission even though we hadn't seen the room yet or decided if we would definitely stay there.
After lunch, we looked at the room and did indeed decide we would stay there for a couple of nights. We spent the day walking around, getting our bearings, and went down to the river to watch the sun come down. We booked a trip to see the Irrawaddy Dolphins for the next day and also booked our next bus to Phnom Penh for the day after. We went to a nice NGO for dinner that night. They were training young Cambodians to work in all aspects of catering and tourism. Whoever was teaching them did a fantastic job, it was by far the best service we've had since leaving Scotland. The food wasn't amazing but the service definitely made up for it.
The next morning we got a tuk tuk about 30km away to the Mekong River where we rented a long boat and went out for about an hour or so to see the Dolphins. The Irrawaddy Dolphins are endangered, there are only about 150 of them left in the world and 70 of those are in there in the Mekong River. We saw a few close up at the beginning but then only from far away after that. The guy on our boat was very good at pointing them out to us. We didn't mind that we didn't get to see them up close as all the money from the trips goes towards the conservation of the Dolphins and that's all that rally matters anyway.
After our time was up on the river, we asked our tuk tuk driver to take us a wee bit further along the river to a place we had seen when we arrived the day before. It was such a beautiful wee spot with buildings on stilts down on the river.
When we got back we went searching for the post office so we could send some post cards and then went for dinner. I had one of my cheapest beers that night, about 50p for draft Angkor.
We were leaving for Phnom Penh the next day and really glad to be leaving our accommodation. We stupidly paid up front for two nights but hugely regretted it as the guesthouse obviously had some issues with the plumbing as there was a rancid smell in the place on the second day. Note to selves - don't pay in advance again.
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