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Dolphins + Mekong = Muddy Flipper!

I headed out early the next morning to get the moto to the bus station. The square where the bus station was situated was chaos, not organised chaos, but absoulte chaos. There were some Police there, but they were just blowing whistles and waving to people. Every pick-up was already full, but still there were people running out to newly arrived people to try and squeeze them on to the back, roof or bonnet, where ever they could fit them. I headed for the counter that said tickets just before 9am, the time it said on my ticket that the bus would be leaving, to be told that the bus left at 8am, so I had missed it. There was a lot of people queing around the entrance to the ticket booth so it was a struggle to get to the window. When I was walking back to get a moto, I felt in my pocket, a zipped one, to check my phone was still there.

It wasn't!

I had felt hands, legs and bags around my pockets, but didn't think for one minute that some body was trying to pick pocket me, I think I even looked straight at the girl who lifted the phone, I think there might even have been a look of shock there from what I recall, but the shock of being told that the bus had already gone had my mind else where.

I headed back to the Guest House and found some body to try and call my phone, to see if I could buy it back from them. They had already turned it off, probably thrown the Sim away and sold it before I got back to the Guest House. They were as shocked as I was that the bus had already left, they said that thats the time the bus company gave, they offered me a free nights accommodation and rebooked the ticket, they were appologetic about it. I phoned up the Tourist Police so I could make a report, 2 hours after he said that he was going to be there he eventually arrived.

 He set it out straight from the begining.

''A report useually takes 2-3 days (I was leaving the next day), but if you pay a bit of money it will happen sooner."

"Ok," I said" How much will it cost?"

"$25"

I think thats just amazing, out-and-out corruption, he didn't even try to hide it, there was no suttle hand gestures or notes passed under the table, he just came out with it. He did, to be fair, sound abit appologetic of fleecing me of some more money than I had already lost that day, and he did avoid eye contact, but still, he did just come out and say it.

Now I want to get the facts straight here, so as not to be accused of exagerating the truth. He turned may be less than a foot to his left, opened his bag and with drew all of the bits of information and forms that were needed. For the $25 I had shelled out, I, had to do most of the writing, in truplicate, then have my finger prints taken, and stamped over all of the copies.

That was most of the day gone and I had no enthusiasm to do anything else that day.

In the morning I headed out again, got the right bus and headed north. It took an hour to get out of the city. There is a Bhuddist holiday for the next 15days, so lots of people are heading to there homes in the countryside. The journey was supposed to take 6 hours but took 9.

The secnery from Phnom Penh up to Kraite was dead flat, a flood plain for the most part and when it wasn't a flood plain it was jungle struggling to recover from deforistaion and rice paddies, there were no hills, just flat.

When I got to Kraite I found some where to stay and booked a Dolphin sight seeing trip for the next day, and a trip over the boarder to southern Laos.

The trip for the Dolphins left early in the morning, it was 15km north of the city. Me and a kiwi boarded the small boat and motored up the Mekong for a few kms waiting for the Dolphins. We weren't to be dissapointed, well no to much any way. We saw the Dolphins breaching the surface a few times, but it was no more than a fleeting glimpse of the dorsal fin and a bit of the head. There were no acrobatics or surfacing along side the boat. I may have got some very distant pics of the Dolphins, but we shall have to wait and see.

Now, to be fair to the Dolphin, lets call him flipper for now. Flipper was having a hard time of it. The water of the Mekong isn't that clean. In fact if you were swimming in it, which isn't a good idea, you wouldn't be able to see your hand 1mm from your eye ball. How flipper finds any fish in there at all is a miracle, may be he dosent and is malnurished so he doesn't have the energy for flips and summersaults. The main thing pressing on poor flippers mind is that he has to fight the mighty Mekong, all day, every day thats alot of stress for a Dolphin, even one as famous as Flipper. Its the rainy season at the moment which isn't helping him, at the moment, but the flow on the river is very storng. If he went to sleep even for a minuet, he would be well on his way to Vietnam and the salty sea before he new where he was. It would be a lot easier for him to go and live in the sea, apart from the salt thing, as he could see where he was going, see his dinner and only have the tide, and not a huge river to worry about and navigate.

 These could all be the reason why old Flippers numbers are decling. 70 down from 1000. The fact that the source comes from China probably doesn't help, as there must be a lot of pollutents flowing down stream. May be the dam they are planning for the Mekong will actually help the poor flipper, may be give the pollutents time to dissapear before floating down through the rest of SE Asia.

Another thing that might help Flipper is a dam in Cambodia to slow down the water a bit, give his flippers a rest, or may be water wings and a rope to hold on to, umm,  might just work.

After the Dolphins we headed to some temples for a wonder and watch the religious  festivals that are taking place at the moment, across between the Cambodian new year and the day for remembering the dead. From the top of the hill where the temples were, there were some amazing zip wires down to the ground, may be for the monks if they are late for morning prayers or they could have been for the building work as well, couldn't quite work that one out.

When we got back to Kraite we headed back to the resturant where we got the motos, had lunch and then I headed out to see a bit of Kraite. Most of Kraite seems to be reclaimed from the flood plains of the Mekong and the lake on the other side of it. The roads have been built up 2-3 m from the lake level and all of the houses are built on wooden or concrete stilts.

The clouds were starting to get very black and threating another monsonal down pour so I started walking back to the hotel. On the way back I was looking at the scenery and the trees over head, and it felt like I had stepped on a stick, something rolled under my feet. I looked down and a very aggressive and slightly miffed snake was riggling away from me. I stopped to take a picture of it, feeling thankful I didn't get bitten, I didn't know it was poisonous at the time. Some girls stopped on their bikes and came to see what I was looking at, they started to throw there sandles at it and jumping back when it was trying to strike out at them, it was very aggresive. Some boys further up the road had just despatched  a snake smaller, but the same colour as this one, in the same way, flip flops and sandles, so I guessed it probably wasn't the safest of reptiles. It managed to escape to the bank and fell in the river, probably feeling very greatful for the poor aim of the girls and the light weight foot wear they had on. I checked with the resturant staff when I got back, and they said that it was poisonus.

Tomorrow morning I have a trip booked north for the Laos boarder and an island in the middle of the Mekong, where I might get another chance to see the Dolphins, may be they will be a bit more energetic this time. 

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