Irra-what?

When we got back into Phnom Penh, we bought bus tickets for the following day to head north to Kratie (pronounced "krachay") to see the endangered and infamous Irrawaddy River Dolphins. We ate at the night market where I stumbled upon the perfect ornament for our future Christmas tree, a mini fishing catcher which they use in the fishing dance and also, ironically, in REAL life, for fishing.

The bus rides, at this point, are nothing. We crammed our stuff under the seats and had our typical rations of water and bread ready for the hours ahead of us. Derek made a funny comment that the kid next to us "killed Winnie the Pooh" as he had a backpack of his likeness hanging by the neck around his seat. The family to our left let their kid run in the aisles with his toys. We watched some strange picture on tribal fighting in Cambodia, with a very annoying woman who talked like Hello Kitty. ALL Cambodian women featured in movies speak this way - only dogs can make out the pitch they find appropriate. I think they believe it makes them sound innocent and sweet, but instead, you want to bust your own eardrums to keep from hearing the siren's call to throw yourself over the nearest bridge.

A nice American woman, who had married a Cambodian man, told us when to get off. We enjoyed the scenery and switched seats to have more room as people got off. The bus was freezing, and I put on Derek's socks and extra clothes to keep myself conscious until we arrived.

When we got there, we were dropped off in the middle of a street and began to pick our way along to a $5/night hotel. A man walked next to us the whole way, telling us he had just the place for us to stay - and it turned out, that he was pitching the same place we'd already chosen. He came all the way up to our room with us, telling us about the rates to see the dolphins (that's all this town is living on). We told him we'd think about it, and left for dinner when we finally kicked him out.

We had dinner (after a failed attempt to find the night market - if we found it, we didn't know it, it was probably that small) at another hotel where we ended up booking a driver for the next day - the rates were half of what our little "friend" quoted. He wasn't happy the next morning when he found out we "cheated" on him, but we had a splendid drive with a French couple out to meet the dolphins.

This Irrawady River dolphin, closely related to the Orca, is a round-nosed entertaining character that lives in the Mekong river and its delta waterways. The water is muddy brown, but the dolphins surface for air every few minutes, giving you a priceless opportunity to see them for yourself. There are only 100 or so left in the world, and about three quarters live in the river near this Cambodian town.

We sat for an hour out on the water, filming them whenever we could manage to catch them in the viewfinder. We didn't see them jump, and pictures were hardly possible, but it was a really fantastic opportunity. We stopped by a hill temple on the way back to town that isn't even really worth mentioning, and packed our things. We were harassed all the way to the station by our little "friend" from the day before, who told us we could get discounted tickets from him, and he reserved them for us, and we didn't want them. He had a few VERY unkind things to say to us, and for the second time on our trip, we were told by a local never to come back to Cambodia. Of course, the other 99% were charming, so we indeed would come back, in spite of his rude comments. We waited for much longer than promised for the bus, which was loaded with tourists when it finally arrived ("only 30 minutes more"...."you sure? you said that 30 minutes ago"..."yes, i'm sure, only 30 minutes more") and we had a surprisingly white-filled, peaceful time watching some sequel of The Mummy until it skipped itself into stop mode, and we watched as our driver tried for a half hour to maneuver the bus over a very narrow and rickety-looking bridge while a hundred onlookers sat by to see if he'd hit the edge and end us all, into the muddy ravine.

I wouldn't mind so much, as long as the bus didn't kill one of those dolphins in the process.

Snicker Doodle-Ville

We took a bus down to Sihanoukville on the southern coast. Boasting a first-rate slot as the nation’s most fantastic beach area, we arrived in the pouring rain to a town with trash-filled streets. We avoided the mob of taxi offers as usual and determined to walk to our guest house. On the way, we found a small restaurant called Holy Cow, where we enjoyed some comfort food on warm couches. It was getting dark, so we headed to our guest house, passing by a massive golden lion statue in the center of a roundabout. Our first try for a room struck out, so we stayed a few doors down at a mellow hangout, called Mick & Craigs. After a shower, we played pool and ordered drinks. 

The next day, we walked towards the shore. We didn’t have much time, so we got an early start and bought bread and jam at a convenience store to save on breakfast. Down at the waterline, workers slaved away building up a boat port. We were swarmed by girls selling bracelets and sunglasses and women giving pedicures, for only $2! But, our feet had a longer way to travel, so we denied their pleas. Some of them got quite friendly and offered that we could sit at a restaurant’s beach chairs without buying anything. They showed us how they “wax” women’s legs – with a piece of floss, worked on your hair. As the string twists, it pulls hair with it. My legs weren’t bad, considering I had recently shaved after a very long stint of neglect (hey, it’s backpacking!), but they still wanted to show how their method was better than anything else, and that the results would last up to three weeks (for the record, it lasted about one).

We met an unfortunate shoe salesman who hit us at our point of irritation with the constant requests to buy things, even as you try to relax. He responded to our blunt denial to his product by telling us that we shouldn’t come to Cambodia if we don’t want to be bothered. We’ve met so many amiable people; it was a shame to run into an attitude like that.

The sky was very cloudy and it dribbled a bit, so we got very little sun, but we were glad to see a bit more of the country. We left that afternoon after a quick meal in a local restaurant, and headed back to Phnom Penh. That night in Phnom Penh, we hit the night market where we scored a local noodle dish that we like, Lat Char. The place was brimming with noise and people, so we didn’t stay long. I did buy an ornament for our tree – a mini version of their woven fishing tools. 

The next morning, we took off for Kratie (pronounced Krachay) where we would view the endangered Irrawady Dolphins. We stayed that evening in a very nice $5 hotel and got a nice dinner at a place where we managed to book a boat and tuk tuk for our touring pleasure. We were picked up the next morning and met a young French couple who would ride with us, out to the boat docks a half hour north, where the dolphins stay. We got in a little motor boat and set out for the center. No one else was out that morning (not much else is in the area, so it’s not nearly as touristy as some places), and after a minute we were able to see the dolphins surface. For an hour, we just sat quietly, waiting for them to come up. You could track where they’d resurface after a bit, and we got some of our time on film (thanks, Derek!) because pictures were useless with such little notice and very little idea of location. It was a very incredible thing, seeing these creatures living in their natural habitat, with no one else around, and with only 100 left in the world (75 live in this area, the other 25 or so near the delta). When the other boats started coming out, we headed back, and grabbed ourselves a hand-carved wooden souvenir of the dolphins before heading to a hill (it’s not worth mentioning – the views were mostly hidden by tree growth, and we saw more temples, a very common thing at this point, unless they’re unreasonably spectacular, which they weren’t).

Then, onward to Siem Riep, where we would conclude our trip. I was looking forward to not moving around for a few days, as we were on a bus every day for a week. But, no one can say we didn’t use our time well, and we certainly saw more of Cambodia than most visitors.

Democratic Republic of Kampuchea

Taking a slow boat into the capitol and back in time, Cambodia has much ado about not developing. Despite this, the kingdom remains a wonderful place to visit for its amazing people, alternately beautiful and terrible sights, and of course, the food.

During the reign of the extreme marxist Pol Pot in the 1970's, millions of the country's citizens were killed and the entire population was enslaved into agrarian work camps. Dreaming of a one-class society where all workers fueled agricultural production, Pol Pot slaughtered any academic or dissenter his genocidal party could find. We shared a morning tuk-tuk to the Choeung Fields killing fields with Tanya and Eugenia, the Russian-Canadian sisters turned awesome traveling companions we met on our way into the country from the Mekong Delta.

Upon arriving at the fields, you're greeted by a beautiful stupa that towers over a peaceful orchard. Butterflies flit about and the ubiquitous southeast Asian chickens cluck along peacefully. You think to yourself how lovely it is until your foot steps on a skull fragment.

Housed inside the stupa on 17 shelves are nearly 9,000 skulls recovered from the roughly 20,000 people that were slaughtered here. Organized by age (from children up) it's a frightfully somber reminder of how horrible humanity can be. As you tour the sight, you see depressions in the ground where the seemingly innumerable mass graves were/are. There are terrible things here, and most of you would be better off not having your day and mind so afflicted by such atrocities. It's a strange feeling, a powerful mix of sadness, shock, and disgust. For anyone wondering why this wasn't stopped when it happened in just the 70s, well, look at Burma right now. . . and support the Free Burma Rangers.

Not yet sufficiently depressed, we continued on to Tuol Sleng, a school that was, quite symbolically, turned into a prison-torture center. Some of the rooms are still stained with blood, and large portrait photos on the walls showed the bodies found in them when the detention center was liberated. Other rooms showed the brick and wood barriers built up to house prisoners in tiny cells formed within the larger classrooms. Exhibitions with photos of the detained also added an all-too-personal reminder of the human cost of genocide.

Having seen enough after walking through the section on the torture that occurred here, we left to find lunch and a little sanity outside in the capitol. Happily, we found  our way to Friends restaurant, a wonderful organization that serves Cambodia's street youth. We are always happy to be patrons of organizations like this and greatly enjoyed our delicious, if overly American-priced, lunch. Kendra, still feeling the effects of our morning's festivities, opted simply for a lemon-soda, adding soda water to lemon and sugar mixture. I thought that was neat.

Continuing on, we found ourselves freed from the horrible sights of the morning to view the better half of Cambodia's history. If you were to listen to a conversation in the Kingdom of Cambodia, 1 out of every 4 words spoken would probably be "Angkor." They're phenomenally proud (images of its main temple adorn just about every vertical surface) and rightly so, the temples, as we would later see in person, are incredible. After being refused entry at the Royal Palace for not being dressed in a sufficiently respectful manner (it's okay, it's basically a small carbon copy of Thailand's Grand Palace anyway), we would catch our first glimpse of Angkorean ingenuity at the National Museum, housing a multitude of the Khmer Kingdom's finest stone masonry all surrounding a gorgeous central courtyard.

After filling up on the beautiful carvings, we sought to fill our tummy's at an authentically Khmer, and authentically delicious, food market outside the Psar O'Russei market-center. It was a full day in the capital, and what better way to prevent burnout then to take a trip down to Cambodia's 'premier' beach destination at Sihanoukville.