Michael Batson

The city of Kratie is 300 kilometres by road north of Phnom Penh, on the Mekong River.  Aside from some spectacular sunsets viewed over the river, the town is known for being home to some of the rarest dolphins in the world.  Tourism, so often the harbinger of extinction for so much and so many, has probably, to some extent, saved these creatures from disappearing altogether.Though bus travel in Cambodia is much improved with many newer Hyundai models now available, our bus from Phnom Penh was a battered vehicle also of Korean origin.  Outside the capital, at Skun, the road divides with National Route Six heading north-west to Siem Reap and the famous temples of Angkor.  To head north, National Route Seven heads at first east to the Vietnam border before turning north in a circuitous route to Kratie and the provinces of Mondulkiri and Rattanakiri bordering Vietnam and Strung Treng bordering Laos.  At the provincial capital of Kompong Cham, the construction of a two-lane bridge over the Mekong has meant river crossings no longer require time consuming ferry crossings.Compared with usual average speeds of 40-50 kilometres in most other parts of Cambodia (and considerably slower than that when I first visited here) the roads in this part of Cambodia are fast, and the farther north you travel the less the traffic.  At times the bus was speeding along at perhaps 100 kilometres an hour, speeds almost unheard in the sub-Mekong region unless you were travelling in Thailand