Kratie

Thursday, 11 March

Didn't have to get up too early, so got out of bed at 07H00, booked the tuk tuk for the dolphin trip later that afternoon, for $10 and went to the Star restaurant for breakfast at 08H00. Had an English breakfast - 2 fried eggs, very crisp bacon, a HUGE hash brown and beans in tomato sauce with a large French breadroll and awful, strong coffee. Dylan fetched my Ellis Brown coffee creamer from the guesthouse, but the coffee remained undrinkable and cold. Dylan was writing his journal and looked up to see the female owner (50 or so), put what first looked like a tiny kitten, sort of like a tabby, on the desk. Then we realised it was more spotted than striped and Dylan thought it looked like an ocelot. We saw they'd put a string around its neck and were angrily talking about this when the woman dunked its face into a saucer of milk and it walked around on the desk, mewling and bewildered. She pulled it back from the edge of the desk with the string and I couldn't stop myself from flying over to the desk and picking it up and cuddling it against my chest and cupping it in my hands, it was tiny! It immediately calmed down. I asked the 35 year old woman, who speaks some English where she'd got it and she said it was not a kitten, but a tiger. I thought she'd misunderstood me, so I asked again and she said it was a tiger and that someone (I think her brother) had found it walking along the road, I'm guessing in a jungle area. I stoked and nuzzled the cub and it started licking its tiny hind legs. I thought it may be 5 days old, but Dylan thought it was 9 days old. I was still not really believing this was a tiger cub, so I asked how big it would get and the 35 year old woman showed to just above her waist. I aksed how long she planned to keep it and what they would do with is. She said they had not decided, but possibly a week or so and she was trying to decide what to do with it, possibly take it to a farm near Phnom Penh or up north. I said they must not let it walk around in the open as it was still tiny and was afraid of all the noise. Someone could carry it around and/or it should be put somewhere quiet in a box with a soft towel and they must give it a lot of milk. The cub was sleeping in my hands so I carefully put it in the nest I'd made in the towel in the box they brought and covered its head. I hated leaving it there.

We went back to the guesthouse. I had taken headache tablets, so I was feeling quite sleepy and had a nap. The tuk tuk driver was waiting for us at 14H00. A young British couple, Mark and Jenny, also came along on their own tuk tuk. We drove to the dolphin watching jetty and paid another $7 to the boatman. He used an engine to get us about 1 km into the river, which has an island on it, 1 km wide, so you can imagine how wide it is at that point. But it is not too deep in places, as the boat sometimes scraped over rocks and sand. We saw dolphins a couple of times,. not sure whether they were the same ones that were swimming around in the area. There were two other boats with people out too. The dolphins would just breach once or twice then disappear underwater, but Dylan and I got two reasonable photos, you actually need at least two hours and lots of patience and we were only there for one hour. It was lovely being on the river, even though the sun was very hot. The boatman battled to start the engine a few times and also lost his rudder once, but we made it back eventually.

The tuk tuk drivers then took us to the Kampi pools, where were not very deep due to the little water this time of year (hot and dry, no rain). The rocks were fairly sharp and very slippery with algae. We got wet, couldn't really swim, still refreshing. It seems the whole community comes here to swim and wash and sit on the reed platforms to have a picnic - quite a bit of rubbish in the water, the Cambodians think nothing of throwing their litter anywhere and everywhere. We left just after sunset at 18H15 and were very touched by the young girl sitting at a table outside the tourist stalls at the entrance, trying to her homework by the light of her cellphone! We rode back in the dark, got back at 18H30, agreed to meet at 19H00 for supper at U-Hong. I was really hungry for a change, had Thai green curry with pork - delicious and tasty and generous helping. Only two PC's were connect to the Internet, so Colin stayed and Dylan and I went back to pack for the trip to Banlung tomorrow in a shared minibus, $7 per seat. We're taking the minimum and packing everything in the yellow togbag - 2 sets of underwear, 3 T-shirts, 1 pr shorts, socks, walking shoes and of course my hairdryer and pillow. Dylan's knee is still hurting, so he's strapping it up.