Dust to dust...

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There are certain differences you notice when you leave the big Cambodian towns and head into the countryside. One is that the women-folk seem to spend their whole day wearing pyjamas. Another is the tuk tuks become bigger - they're almost like scooter-towed minibuses. But the main thing is the dust. An endless cloud of red dust. We'd left Siem Reap and headed to the little dusty town of Kratie. Dusty houses line dusty streets full of dusty people all trying to get on with their dusty lives. It's not an affluent town and people live hand-to-mouth above their crumbling shops or in little wooden shacks. Which makes it all the more frustrating to see the lovely, shiny, new Tax Office standing proudly in the middle of it all. Worried that your taxes are being mis-spent? Why would you think that?

We have been seeing a lot of local weddings taking place (must be the season) and there are two things that stand out. One is the sheer brilliance of bright colour which is amazing. From the marquee to the outfits, it is so vibrant - especially when set against the dirty brown everydayness of Cambodian life. The other thing is a bit puzzling: outside each wedding there are pictures of the happy couple in a selection of wedding outfits. This provokes a number of questions. Like, when did you have these pictures done? And, why did you have these pictures done? Is it so that guests know they're at the right wedding? Or maybe it's so that guests, who maybe haven't seen their side of the family for a while, will be able to recognise which ones are actually the bride and groom.

The reason we'd come to Kratie was that it sits right next to the mighty Mekong River and in this river dwell a very rare creature indeed - freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins. So we hired a boat and pootled out into the middle of the river, fully expecting to be severely disappointed by a "no-show". Imagine our surprise, then, when dolphin after dolphin came to the surface to breathe. They are nearly impossible to photograph because you're never sure where exactly they are going to surface next, but there were so many that eventually I managed to snap a couple. It makes you wonder just how endangered these dolphins actually are. Apparently they're doing much better since the government banned the practice of "grenade fishing".

The bus from Kratie to Ban Lung was one of the most eventful yet. Claire and I were the only tourists on board - we were even outnumbered by the sacks of animal feed in the aisle. Every mile or so there'd be a massive pothole - sometimes accompanied mounds of warped tarmac - across the whole width of the road. The driver would rarely slow for these and the result was similar to what I imagine it would be if you just dropped the bus onto the road from mantlepiece height. Then we hit and killed a chicken. The driver let out a quiet "oh", the sort of mildly annoyed sound you'd make if you'd maybe just dropped a pencil, and continued on his rampage. The tarmac then gave way to gravel track which threw up huge clouds of that red dust. So dusty was it, that we had to stop three times to change the air filter. Everything we own looks like it has just returned from Mars.

Ban Lung itself is a very small town with a big market in the middle, but not much else. The surrounding area, however, is a treasure trove - literally. We rode out to an area where locals mine zircon from the red earth. They dig a hole about 10 metres deep and just wide enough to fit in, then one man goes down and fills a bucket with soil while his mate winches it back to the surface. The soil is then sifted by hand to find the gems - it's a very hot and dirty job. Then we went on a boat trip to where women were panning for gold. They sift the river silt looking for the tiny gold flecks. Apparently it takes about 3 days to accumulate a gram. I tried to give them a hand but succeeded only in making them laugh at my ineptitude. One of the women had lots of gold teeth which seemed a bit odd - she sells the gold she finds to earn enough money to buy gold teeth! She's not thought that through.

We visited an old tribal cemetery in the jungle where wooden effigies of the dead stand guard over the graves. It was quite eerie and unnerving to be suddenly confronted by a face in the trees. Almost as unnerving was the pack of silent children that we suddenly noticed were following us through the undergrowth - just like those little dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Another highlight of our time in Ban Lung was swimming in the circular lake that sits in the crater of an extinct volcano. It was so beautiful and peaceful. Later, we returned to our guest house to find lots of people stood in the street, staring at the night sky. So we looked up too, half-expecting to see a fleet of invading aliens or something. Instead what we saw was an amazing lunar eclipse taking place. How kind of them to organise that for our last night in Cambodia! It was a wonderful send off. Or at least it was until, the next morning, we saw the van that would be taking us to Laos...

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