Trip to Kratie

Hello everyone!
The girls had a one week holiday from school for a local Buddhist Celebration known as Pchum Ben.  Shawn had off 2 days of work so we decided to take advantage of one of those days and head to Kratie (pronounced Krah-chay) and see the endangered Irrawady River Dolphins.  As usual, the drive was a lot of fun.  We are always amazed when people carry their IV poles like this.  It's actually kind of sad, and I know we had one of these photos in the beginning of our blog, but we thought this was a better view. 

We of course had to stop and go to the toilet on the side of the road.  This proved problematic as there were a lot of people on the road, but we managed.  I will not include the photo of me, but here is Phoebe!













 



These are just some of the photos from our driving around the area .  We thought they were pretty neat.

This is of a little village on the water and of course the fishing boat was cool

These piles of hay can be found all over the countryside.  After the farmers bring in the rice crops they put a stick in the ground and make piles of the hay around the poles.  The piles can become huge and this is what the cows eat from for the year.  You can see in this photo where the top layer has dried out.










Emma had a few issues when we first got on the boat.  She didn't really care for the rocking and whatnot so she had a little freak out session.  You can see by the photos that it wasn't too dramatic. 

 This is where you can see Emma peaking through her fingers

 We all had a great time on the boat.  Even Emma!  We did get to see some of the dolphins which was really really cool.

These dolphins are a blue color with a very rounded nose.  They were beautiful!

This would be the hole in the boat that I made when I broke through some rotted wood.  I can't even claim that I didn't see it as I had picked up the kids and lifted them over it so they wouldn't get hurt.  Should have done the same for myself!  I have a monster bruise on the back of my leg, and only a minor cut.  A kind lady gave me some liquid to put on it that looked like whiskey but I graciously declined and cleaned it with an antiseptic wipe!

I just love this picture of Shawn and the girls

 This is one big fishing net!  The fisherman all along the Mekong had these.

The following photos are of some kids we came across jumping off a bridge.  They were so sweet and were jumping for the camera then climbing back up the bridge to do it again.

Notice the boy climbing up the side of the bridge

The pictures that follow are just some we thought were pretty neat.  We spent a lot of time driving around the countryside as there really isn't a lot to do in Kratie but see the dolphins.  We did try to drive to see a large Wat (Buddhist temple).  We were told it was 37 km away.  We thought we could make it in the 3 hours before dark but alas, the fastest we ever drove was 10km/hour, so you can do the math.  We still had 10km to go at 4pm and didn't think we would be back before dark and driving on these little roads after dark wasn't an option.  Not that we were concerned about our safety, but we were nervous about killing someone else on the road!

This was one of many freaky bridges we crossed.  

Not real sure what he was doing sitting here on the side of the road...escaping a brood of children or grandchildren, contemplating life, fulfilling a lifelong desire to feel hot concrete on his arse?  Who knows but it wasn't particularly safe!

This reminded Shawn of "Thunder Dome"

Saw LOTS of water buffalo.  These ones were really checking us out!

If you look closely she doesn't have any pedals on this bike.  There is no point for her to sit on the seat as she is not tall enough to use her feet to push her along.  Toe stubbing seems inevitable!

We thought this was pretty neat as they tied a bamboo pole to the side of palm tree to make a ladder!

Waking up Daddy!

We ended up going a different route home.  The guy said the road was great.  We decided that was relative.  We did make it back to a paved road after about 45 minutes and it turned out it was faster in the long run.

The following three photos are in a sequence and they show an interesting phenomenon here in Cambodia. They try and cram as many people in the taxi's and vans as possible.  Previous blogs have shown people sitting on the roofs of cars and vans and tied to the back.  This is something we haven't shown before So: 

#1:  Just looks like the guy is leaning out trying to get a little air while he drives his car.

 #2:  Why are both his hands outside the car if he's driving?

 #3:  Discovery!  He is the person crammed between the driver and the door.  This photo doesn't show exactly how many people are in the car, but it was packed. 

So that was our trip to Kratie.  We had a good time and we were only gone for 3 days.  Vicky (Shawn's sister) and her husband Joel arrive this weekend and we are so excited!  Mattie's arm is doing ok.  We head back to Singapore next week (week 8) to hopefully change to a smaller cast or a splint.  Thanks for all the prayers for her continued recovery.  We really appreciate it.

Peace!