Eastern Cambodia – River Dolphins and Forest Elephants

Eastern Cambodia – River Dolphins and Forest Elephants

At the old French river port of Kratie the Mekong fragments into lots of little islands pocked with little stilt villages and the sun sinks like a golden ball over the horizon, silhouetting fishermen throwing their cast nets off wooden boats and flocks of egrets leaving the river to roost in the forest trees. This is the best location in the world to see Irrawaddy River Dolphins – tiny, snub-nosed, slate blue cetaceans who play in shallow waters around islands just to the north of the town in the late afternoon.

It’s around three hours by car from Kratie to Mondulkiri where you can take day walks in rainforest filled with whooping gibbons and heavy-beaked hornbills who float silently from branch to bromeliad-covered branch like falling leaves. At the Mondulkiri Project volunteers work with Asian elephants rescued from harsh lives harvesting logs in the forest. You can feed them, join them for a river-bath and learn about the treatment they suffer at the hands of their previous owners or mahouts. Money from tourist visits goes directly towards their rehabilitation.