Kratie, Cambodia

Headed out by local bus to a small town called Kratie. The most picturesque place on the edge of the Mekong River, the wide red river. The straw houses on stilts surrounded by lush green palm trees, greener than you can imagine along dusty red pot holed roads. I got motorbike rides out through these little villages, found a young boy witha boat to take me out across the river where I saw so much interesting wildlife and even stub nosed rare dolphins swinmming in family groups, they were so beautiful, swimming all around our boat, we stayed there for ages watching them play as the sun set.

The boy who took nme out was onme of 7 children, living in very poor conditions. His father worked as a fisherman and cought maybe 1 kilo of fish a day. From this he would sell half to buy rice and the rest use to feed his family. Thats all the income they got. The boy did odd jobs for people when he could to earn a dollar so that he could get English lessons which may help him find work in hte future. In the meantime it was difficult for him to earn anything without a bike and he couldn't afford a bike.

Well that night I got extremely ill, side affects of the malaria pills I think. Anyway i didn't leave my bed for 3 days and didn't eat or drink for 7 days. But as soon as the fever left I had to carry on, very weak by this point i emptied half my rucksack so that i would be able to carry it and the closest hospital was Bangkok. I had to carry on up through Cambodia by boat and motorbike to a horrible border town of Stung Treng, sitting on the roof of the boats in rain and sun and wind! And getting off the boat knee deep into mud. Then caked in mud by motorbike to get across the border to Laos in the middle of a jungle, then a jeep to a Laos ghost town called Pakse.