Cambodian wildlife

Our final night in Cambodia has been spent in Kratie which is situated on the banks of the mighty Mekong river. It's a really nice chilled place, especially after the busy town of Siem Reap where Angkor Wat is. Tomorrow we get a bus to Stung Treng and from there a boat to Laos. We actually travelled to Kompong Cham from Siem Reap as this was where the bus went and a hot, sweaty, karaeoke playing bus it was to. As always the bus stopped for lunch and one of the tasty snacks available was what we've been waiting to see, er...not to try. The deep fried spider, mmmmm. Some westerner, French I think, dived straight in and got himself a nice little bag of spiders to much, to be honest he looked like he'd had a few to many spiders already and pigs, cows, goats and food generally. Even after my recent encounter with an edible beatle there was no way I was going to be brave enough to have a go at a spider, not even a nibble on a leg!
Before we left Siem Reap we payed a visit to the crocodile farm. A charming place where they keep crocs to turn into bags, belts, steaks, you name it... It whiled away a few minutes anyway and made for some good photos of the condemned.
Another sweaty bus ride today brought us to Kratie and we found a cracking little hotel called 'You Hong'. Very clean (Tom) with a ceiling fan and cable Tv all for $4! Even Sam was impressed with it :) Apart from being a nice stop over on the way to Laos, Kratie is well known for one thing. Dolphins! And no, they don't eat them like evrything else with a pulse, these are special dolphins that live in the Mekong called Irrawaddy dolphins. There are only about 75 of them left along this stretch of the Mekong which includes the southern part of Laos where we are going tomorrow. I wondered if we would see any on our little boat trip as they are so rare, but we saw loads of them! I'd never seen dolphins before and it was fantastic to see some! You'd only see them for a couple of seconds while they were getting some air and then they would be gone, so you had to keep your eyes peeled. Absolutely superb! The ride on the moped 15k to the dolphins and back was amazing as well, really beautiful countryside and lots of lovely Cambodian huts and houses with the usual friendly waving kids and with the Meknog in the background all the time, it was one of those journeys we won't be forgetting in a long time.
So thats is, bye bye to Cambodia, we have now crossed the border and are relaxing on our hotel veranda overlooking the Mekong! It's a beatuitful view and on first impressions Laos seems really nice, very chilled people and cheap :) Laos blog to follow soon!