Ta Som Guesthouse, Siem Reap

Reached Siem Reap yesterday evening. Our guesthouse manager in Kratie claimed that it is impossible to visit the dolphins and travel to Siem Reap all in one day but his advice was probably driven by his short term business interests (to have us stay in his guesthouse for one extra day).

On the way to Siem Reap changed buses in the town of Skuon, famous for its deep-fried spiders. We didn't know if we have to spend the night in Skuon or is there still a connection to Siem Reap. In the end it appeared so quickly that we had no time to check out the spiders.

Yesterday morning visited the Irrawaddy Dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris). The segment of river where they hang out is 15km upriver from Kratie. Tuktuk there and back costs 7 USD. From the riverbank you can arrange a 1.5h boat ride for 9 USD per person. Everything is well organized, e.g. the money is paid to a central ticket office. We had many sightings but it remained unclear how may instances we saw as there is no Projeto Boto here to mark the dolphins. The animals didn't come that much out of the water either, revealing only their dorsal fins and blow-holes.

Irrawaddy dolphin swimming in Mekong at Kampi, Cambodia

Future plans include spending 3 days at the Angkor Archaeological Park and then going back to Thailand.

Our netbook started working again so we didn't suffer any loss of data. (Otherwise would have lost one week worth of photos that had not been copied to our external harddrive yet.)