Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong — a quiet provincial town on the river where the world's rarest freshwater dolphins surface at dawn
Kratie (pronounced 'kra-CHEH') is a small provincial town in eastern Cambodia on the Mekong — 5 hours from Phnom Penh by road, largely bypassed by the tourism circuits that fill Siem Reap and Sihanoukville. Its principal attraction is Kampi, 15km north: a Mekong pool between the riverbank and Koh Kampi island where a population of Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) — one of the world's rarest cetacean populations, with approximately 89 individuals remaining in the Cambodian Mekong — can be seen year-round from small wooden boats. The dolphins surface to breathe every 1–2 minutes, roll…
Kratie was a regional administrative centre under both the Khmer Empire and later the French protectorate. The French built the characteristic grid of wide tree-lined streets, administrative buildings, and the market that still define the town centre. During the Khmer Rouge period (1975–1979), Kratie and its surrounds were devastated — the province was a stronghold of Khmer Rouge resistance even after 1979 and remained dangerous into the 1990s. The Irrawaddy dolphin population, once found throughout the Mekong from Laos to the sea, was reduced by gillnetting and dynamite fishing in the 1970s–…