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Part 5: Up the Mekong to Kampong Cham, Kratie and Stung Treng |
| For the next few days I
plan to go up the Mekong to explore the north-eastern part of the country.
I have to wait about an hour at the Phnom Penh Sorya bus terminal (near
the central market, psah thmay). All buses are completely booked out today
as everyone is going back after the waterfestival now. I take the modern,
french aircon bus at 10.30 am (6.000R), run by the Malaysian Ho Wah Genting
company. We reach Kampong Cham in only two hours on a really good road.
I enjoy my little snack at the riverfront (picture) and take a room in
the huge Mekong Hotel (5$, TV, aircon, clean, almost no guests). |
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The piers in
the picture above belong to a Japanese bridge project, the second bridge
in Cambodia spanning the Mekong.
I take a nap in my new room
and then walk over to the market. It offers a rich choice of food and other
household articles. I walk on and pass some beautiful french
colonial villas. The dinner in the Hoa An restaurant is disappointing.
The town is very quiet at night, nightlife only consists of a few karaoke
bars with integrated brothels. I go back early and spend the evening reading. |
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| I enjoy sunrise from the
terrace and have breakfast in the hotel. After only a short trip by moto
I reach Wat Nokor, a 11th century sandstone temple with many stupas and
artificial lakes in a little park. The main temple hall is decorated with
colourful paintings (picture). Our next stop is at Phnom Srey, a little
hill with a temle on top. Fresh wind is blowing in my face and I enjoy
the good view over the flat surrounding landscape with the brown waters
of the Mekong at the horizon. |
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| I put a few hundred
riels into the donation box and walk down the naga-decorated stairs. Back
in Kampong Cham I check out transportation for tomorrow. There is no direct
bus or taxi service to Kratie, the road is too bad.
For the afternoon I plan
to go to the other riverside. By moto it's easy to drive around the big
bridge building site. |
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| The car ferry takes me over
the Mekong and I start my walk along the riverside. |
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| I pass the bridge and the
old, dilapidated french observation tower (not worth a photo). Many people
walk along this narrow path returning to their homes. |
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| Little houseboats and fishing
boats in the warm evening sun. |
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| After a spectacular sunset
I don't want to walk back the whole way and I'm not sure if the ferry is
still in service. A fisherman with his small daughter gives me a
lift back across the river in one of the small boats.
In the evening I meet Willi
again and we agree on taking the speedboat to Kratie the next morning. |
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| The next day. Our speedboat
leaves on time at 7.30 am after blowing the horn for a couple of minutes.
The fare is 15.000 R for the 4,5 hours trip. We sit down on the roof and
relax in the cool breeze. The Mekong landscape isn't too exciting on this
lower part of the river. However, the trip is interesting with a few short
stops in little villages. We reach the boat landing in Kratie at 11.00
am (left boat in the picture). |
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| We choose the Star Guesthouse
as our new home. They offer huge and clean rooms for 4$. A little walk
south along the riverside takes us to another little village. In a Wat
we spend about an hour talking with three monks who show us around in their
temple. One of the temples is already 200 years old and a little
bit run-down but still spreads a mystic atmosphere. Willi speaks a quite
good Thai and we are surprised how many people here know at least a few
words of their neighbour's language.
The woman in the picture
sells "Kubik" (?), a traditional meal with rice. |
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Back in town we watch a
funeral procession. With a police pick-up and armed soldiers in front,
a large number of people and some cars do a round trip through Kratie.
The last opportunity for everyone to say goodbye to the ashes of the dead
man.
At the riverfront the most
beautiful girls of Kratie sell delicious food and fruit shakes (picture). |
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| Across the street there
is the restaurant 30.December, where we have dinner part II. My chicken
with noodles, vegetables and much chilli is excellent. The friendly woman
who owns the restaurant speaks good french. On benches at the riverfront
locals sit and watch the sunset. |
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Kratie is a small and relaxed
little town with 60.000 people living here. Although smaller, it reminds
me at Luang Prabang in Laos (see my last trip). Definitly a place I want
to come back some day.
At the evening I read an
old report about a dangerous boat expedition on the Mekong to the Laotian
border some years ago (see "Overland Laos to Cambodia" in my Cambodia FAQ).
I wonder if we can go there and if the conditions have changed now.
The next morning we get up
at 5.30. A fresh baguette and a hot tea with lemon for breakfast and here
we go. Tickets for the Stung Treng express boat are sold at the small harbour.
We decide to take the "Seng Lee Travel" boat and pay 20.000 Riel. The boat
leaves short before seven and we go inside this time. The boat is smaller
and slower than the day before. Further upstream the Mekong splits into
several arms and the landscape is getting more and more fascinating. |
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| Later we take our usual
place on the rooftop. Around noon the sun gets incredibly strong. When
will we finally arrive? We pass little islands, rapids and huge rocks.
After more than seven hours we can see the little town of Stung Treng at
the confluence of the Mekong and the Sekong river (Tonle San). After negotiating
the price down to 7$, we decide to share a double room in the Hotel Sekong.
Must have been a busy place when the UNTAC still was here. We go to the
market and find a good place to have lunch (picture). We have much fun
joking around with the two girls who run the stall. |
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| Today we have breakfast
in the restaurant "Angkor" south of the market. Then I go to the little
office of Royal Air Cambodge and make a reservation for the tomorrow flight
to PP (49$). I simply write my name in a little book, that's it. I can
see that I'm passenger No. 5 on that flight. After a long search we suceed
in renting private bicycles from locals. Number one (brand-new) is from
a family with a little child, who always shouted an extremely loud "hello"
when we passed by before, so they already knew us. The owner of my bike
is an old barber, who has first to be convinced by his son. We agree on
5.000 R per day, they don't ask for names or papers. We drive to the confluence
of the two big rivers and then turn south. The small, unpaved road is quite
good and we pass numerous little villages at the border of the Mekong.
We stop in a village after 10 km ride and have a walk to a nearby lake
in the jungle. Nothing special, but a very nice walk there. |
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We return the same way along
the ricepaddies (picture) and make another stop at a "coffee-bar", a simple
wooden roadside shack. The Vietnamese guy sitting next to me spent a long
time as a forest worker in Germany, less than 20 km away from the place
where I live. We have an interesting conversation, he invites us for the
drinks.
We stop again at the viewpoint
at the Tonle San river to watch a spectacular thunderstorm approaching
before we go back and return the bikes.
This evening we have a good
claypot dinner in a restaurant near the hospital. |
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| My flight is at 3 pm, so
we have almost another day in Stung Treng. We're up early in the morning
and take the ferry across the Mekong (600 R) to Thala. We wander about
the village, pass the sandstone ox in front of a temple, little shops (picture),
visit a school and finally return to the ferry. The road looks more like
a little river after the strong rainfall yesterday. No problem for this
oxcart (picture below). |
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| Back in Stung Treng, we
have lunch at our favorite market foodstall. Then we return to the hotel
and I pack my stuff. We can borrow the motorbike from the hotel to go to
the airport. The guy from the neighboring room wants to go with us, so
we are three and a big backpack on a small honda, no problem. We find the
very basic airport just a few kilometers outside. We wait outside. The
plane is late, but finally appears in the sky above us. There must be important
passengers on board, many people are waiting, including photographers and
little girls with flowers in their hands. I say goodbye to Willi and walk
over to the aircraft, a French 60-seat ATR 72. With only a handful passengers
we start our flight over endless jungle and large flooded areas. Two hours
later I find myself on the backseat of a moto heading to Phnom Penh city. |
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