May 23 – Day 6 was a 4-5 hour bus ride to Kratie. Along the way, I noticed new types of houses of worship – Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses in Kam Pong Chan. I thought it was interesting since up until that point (and for the rest of the trip) I only saw buddhist temples.
Soon after arriving in Kratie, we dropped off our bags at the hotel and went to lunch down the road. I had a big plate of rice with sausage and pork for only $2. It was quite tasty too. After lunch we rested and then took a tuk tuk to see the dolphins. It was pouring rain during the ride there, but it cleared up by the time we got to the river. At least my rain jacket was getting some use! The temperature while on the water was nice and cool which was such a relief after so many hot days. We managed to spot a lot of dolphins but you could only see a bit of their backs and their top fin. The boats we used were fairly small, so we only had 4 people in each boat.
On the ride back to the hotel, there was a wedding taking place, so we stopped and they let us take pictures with the bridal party. They took pictures of us as well since we were as much of a novelty to them as they were to us. Further down the road, we spotted a nice sunset through the trees along the river. Fortunately, our driver stopped to let us take a picture but unfortunately it didn’t photograph well..
For dinner we ate at the restaurant right next to the hotel and it was quite disappointing. The food wasn’t good and it was much more expensive than our lunch spot. Also the electricity kept going out so that was kind of unsettling.
Upon returning to the room, I realized that management had been in our room when we weren’t there. When I brought this up to them they said perhaps it was to turn off the electricity. Now, I don’t know about you, but I would be willing to give them an extra couple of dollars for the electric to be left on so we could have a cool room and less bugs. I didn’t notice anything missing, but it was a reminder that we should never leave anything valuable in the room.
The room had a bunch of bugs in it at this point, so we sprayed repellent all around (I’m sure that was great for my health!) and went to bed early around 9pm. Fortunately, the cable started working again, so we were able to relax and watch a bit of television before sleeping. Unfortunately, the roomie thought there was a bat in the room, so she woke me up a few hours later. I thought she was nuts until I heard the sounds as well. I Googled and listened to bat sounds online; they sounded the same! I did figure that the bats were outside near the AC unit, but she was so convinced that it was in the room that I went to find someone to check it out. The hotel was a ghost town except for a few friendly roaches, geckos and a giant waterbug. I gave up and went back to sleep! Overall the hotel was okay, not disgusting. It had an all-in-one shower / sink / toilet bathroom but the water was warm and there weren’t too many mouse turds. It did look kind of dirty though. I did kill a giant mosquito on my pillow and it left a ton of blood behind. I decided to not be a diva and just slept with my head on the other side of the pillow.
Aimee Knows 