The Great Trip

Landmines, Corruption, and Malaria... Oh My

When I was a little skater punk of thirteen, trying to break my neck on our homemade half-pipe with punk anthems playing on the boom-box, I knew every word to the Black Flag song “Holiday in Cambodia”. I can still remember the chorus chanting: ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ in a scratchy gothic-punk yell, but that is all I can really remember of the song. I have a vague idea that it was a dark satirical look at land-mines and the Khmer Rouge and that it would be a great place to visit. Flash forward twenty-one years – here I am. I love this place. Sure, the last fifty years have been a little rough here; French colonialism, Vietnam War, Khmer Rouge genocide, governmental corruption, et al… Even considering all that recent strife, Cambodia is an amazing, friendly place to be traveling.

We escaped the madness and sadness of Phnom Penh for the rural cities a few days ago and headed to Kratie (Kra-che). Kratie is a little city in the central north-east of Cambodia which has two main distinctions. First, the town is the most well preserved French Colonial example in the region owing to the fact that, although it changed hands regularly during the many wars, it was usually taken first and without much force. We didn’t really get to see much of the town because the second distinction kept us busy the one full day we had in the town. The second and more amazing distinction that Kratie bears are the very, very, need I say very again, rare, freshwater dolphins. Kratie is home to the Irrawaddy dolphin.

Nearly everybody in the English speaking world knows about salt water dolphins, Most have seen reruns of ‘Flipper’ on Nick-at-Nite (some of you may have seen the first run…) and some have been to Seaworld (or the equivalent theme park) to see the Bottlenose dolphins jump and twirl through hoops, but very few of us are aware of (fewer still have seen) freshwater dolphins. There is a very good reason for disparity. Freshwater dolphins are only found in two places in the entirety of the planet: the first being the Amazon river of South America and the second, surprise, South-East Asia. The other reason most of us are unaware of these little creatures (3-5 feet long) is that there are so few left living here on this planet. In the entire freshwater systems of South-East Asia there are only one hundred individuals left. Just north of Kratie in the Mekong River, nearly two-thirds of the population is concentrated, estimated at between sixty and seventy-five little swimmers. This is why Anissa and I spent seven hours and five dollars and ten cents on a Cambodian bus ride.

We arrived in Kratie in the early afternoon and were ushered into a local hotel by a couple of very nice touts. If you are not aware of what a tout is, a tout is a person that makes a commission to herd, wrangle, court, persuade you into staying in a specific hotel. They are rewarded with a commission that you usually pay through inflated room prices. Sometimes this service, or hassle, is worth the additional dollar a night. Mr. Tel, as in William we were told, was the tout that helped us arrange for our accommodations in Kratie. We were able to negotiate our room rate to fourteen dollars (US), which was a very reasonable rate for the very nice, new hotel where we stayed for two nights. After checking in, Anissa and I were offered a tour package to visit the dolphins and a few pagodas we wanted to see, at an inflated price. Of course, feeling adventurous, we rented a Honda 100cc Scooter for five dollars to make the tour self guided and fifteen dollars cheaper.

We arrived at the dolphin sanctuary just before lunchtime and had a pleasant surprise of seeing Jared. Jared is a cultural anthropologist doctoral candidate from the US that we met the night before at dinner who is bumming around Cambodia for the summer, looking for a place to spend the next two years working on his doctoral thesis studying the effects of ethnic tourism. We charted a long-tail (small wooden boat with a long outboard shaft for the propeller) together for a two hour trip on the Mekong to see the dolphins.

We could not have ordered a more perfect day if given the weather menu from God and asked to order ala carte. The sky was blanketed with tall cotton-ball stacks of clouds, a cool breeze was blowing off the Mekong, and the air smelled sweet like fresh rain on a spring morning. We boarded our long-tail and chugged out to the deep water. All three of us had a palpable anticipation as we slowly moved across the river to the deepest pools of nearly sixty feet or more. The anticipation was due to the rarity of this mammal and the belief held by all three of us that we may be some of the very last humans to see this little shy creature before it disappears from the planet. In 2004, twelve of the calves born that season were found dead along the shore. All twelve had birth defects caused by the industrial waste polluting the Mekong from Cambodia and up stream from China. Most people give the Irrawaddy dolphins ten to twenty years before there are no more left anywhere in the known universe.

After a short journey, we heard the tell-tale sound of expression from the blowhole of a dolphin. Then off in the distance, about a football field away, there was a little glint of sun reflected off the back of an Irrawaddy dolphin. Our driver kept us parallel to the sighted dolphin and continued upstream. Once were past the sighted spot by three- or four-hundred yards the driver cut the engine and allowed us to float in the river in silence waiting for another sighting. It didn’t take long and there were four or five little guys swimming around our boat popping up for a breath then diving again. It was a magical experience. After two hours of floating downstream then firing the engine to crawl back upstream to float through the dolphin pool again we headed for shore. We had one more stop scheduled for the day, the hundred-column pagoda from the 16th century, about twenty-five kilometers further up field.

Jared joined us as we put-putted our scooters through villages on the Mekong to the pagoda. As we passed the little houses on stilts, children would run out, jump up and down, and yell “Hello,” in perfect English, at the top on their lungs. This didn’t just happen once or twice. This happened at nearly every house we passed. The adults were a little different. There are not a lot of tourists that make it this far from town, but those who do are usually on the back of a scooter (Moto), driven by a local with a little darker skin. So, to see two scooters with white people driving must have been quite a surprise if the look on the adults’ faces was any proof. Each time we passed an adult the look was as if they just saw an elephant riding a unicycle and juggling puppies ride down the street. Then, we would smile and a smile would spread like the sunrise across their faces. We stopped about half way to the pagoda for a little refreshment, a local treat, if you will. All over the country we have seen these little, metal wheeled mashing devices and wondered what they were used for. We pulled over to the side of the road and sat down for a cold glass of fresh pressed sugarcane juice over crushed ice. The drink is sweet and cool with a natural hint of citrus. So refreshing!

We made it out to the pagoda a few minutes later. The pagoda was beautiful, having been restored in 1993 after being ravaged by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970’s. Jared speaks a little Khmer and was able to translate for the monks as we were toured around the Wat. Through Jared we learned the history of the Wat and of the reconstruction that had been done over the last decade. The afternoon was getting late so we setoff back to the little town of Kratie. On the way back to town the children ran out into the streets and danced and screamed “Bye” as we headed down the road to a well needed rest.

That evening we met with Jared and some other new friends for a few beers and to recount the day’s adventures. We all agreed that Cambodia is an amazing county and our tourist dollars, your tourist dollars, are well spent here to help this recovering country protect its natural resources and provide renewed hope for the children of this generation. A Holiday In Cambodia? Yes, filled with hope, love, adventure, and pleasure, then wrapped up in a chocolate bow with a glass of sugarcane juice on the side.

Put the place on your lifetime to-do list.

Cheers from Cambodia

Rion and Anissa 

posted by Rion and Anissa @ 2:44 AM