Koh Trong Ferry

The easiest and cheapest way to get from Kratie to Koh Trong island, other than to swim, is to catch the ferry. From the main river front road in Kratie look for the Jasmine Boat Restaurant which is located right next to the boat dock, then take the steep steps down to the jetty. The boat starts running around 6 am and the last boat is any time between 5 pm and 5.30 pm.

A one way trip costs 1000 Riel per person, a bicycle is an additional 500 Riel, and should you wish to haul down a motorbike it will cost 1000 Riel. Although it is possible to take a bike we wouldn't recommend it as certainly much better and easier to hire one from the information centre once you've arrived on Koh Trong island.

The journey takes about 10 minutes and the boat will run once it is full. This means at certain times of day the regularity can be a little unpredictable. Notably the journeys are frequent in the morning and late afternoon and less frequent during the very hot hours in middle of the day.

You can purchase cold drinks on the boat too, just look for the large orange cooler box - water is 500 Riel and soft drinks 2000 Riel.

The family who operate the ferry have several different boats; most frequently the small boat is used and a larger front loading boat is operated during very busy times such as Khmer New Year in April. That being said at present the large boat is in operation.

If you're unfortunate enough to miss the last boat in the afternoon you can always hire it for a private trip back to town for $10, or even better book into a homestay and enjoy the sunset and a quiet night on the island.

Breaking Ground

On thursday morning we set about getting the navigation and sight signs put in place. In the morning Vana, Sophal, ad myself toured the island and dug the holes at the locations that had been approved by Mr Bun Ban. Then after a three hour siesta a tough little horse bore the burden of transporting the signs to their locations where they were set in place.

Small pony on a small island

Refuelling

The process was relatively straight forward and despite the rather hard earth all the signs were put in place that day. At the end of the day the team enjoyed a well deserved coffee at Koh Trong Cafe.

Vana packing the earth back in

Finally Koh Trong has signs

Signs For Koh Trong - Update

Following our meeting with Mr Bun Ban we have been busy finishing off the first round of signs for visitors from Kratie to Koh Trong.

We now have signs for directions on each of the four corners, KM markers, and signs for the two Wats, the Chedi, Beach, View Point, the Vietnamese Temple, and the Floating Village. Oum Ka kindly started his generator, hooked up his electric drill and helped us prepare the signs so they'll be easy to put up.

We had arranged for some posts to be delivered to start the process of erecting them around the island. Howvever it seemed that something was lost in translation and an ox-cart unexpectedly turned up a day ago carrying 8 large 2.5m tree trunks! So in order for these to be useable they will need to be  sawn in half down the trunk and stripped of bark.

Home delivery service on Koh Trong

These will next need to be painted 'eco' green and then we're ready to tour the island with a work crew who (after site approval from the government) will set them in place and secure the signs.

It's our hope to move onto another round of more specific signs and information boards next so it'll be a great motivation once these ones are finally in place. So stay tuned for more updates on the project.

Biffa keeping guard

Fishing on Koh Trong

Fishing happens every day on Koh Trong, nets and lines are cast out into the Mekong along the waters edge. A less common occurrence is the opportunity to fish in the ponds dotted around the centre of the Island. This is not your regular pond fishing and there is no sitting for hours waiting for a fish to take the bait. Here you dive right in, mud knee high and poised ready to pounce on the first fish to make a dash for freedom. 

The water is first emptied using a pump attached to a generator into an adjacent pond. Once the levels are low the pump is switched off and the water is emptied one bucket at a time to reveal the thick mud at the bottom. The fish are Snakehead fish which like to bury themselves into the mud. The team dig away into the bottom of the pond using their hands hoping to grab onto a fish.

Spotters are dotted along the edges of the water ready to shout as soon as they see one escaping, the fish are quick but no match for the team who work together to flush them out. There is a lot of shouting, a lot of laughing and a lot of mud.

Once water has been emptied, it is returned from the neighbouring pond and the process is repeated in reverse in order to catch as many fish as possible. Soon bags and tubs are filling up with fish of all sizes. At the moment they look like muddy eels but after a day spent in clean water they are ready for selling and cooking.

The fish are sold on Koh Trong and go for around 15,000 Riel per kilo for the larger ones so it's a good way of earning some extra money for the farmers.  

Koh Trong Cafe

On the west side of Koh Trong there is a cafe selling cold drinks, coffees, coconuts, and fried noodles. Koh Trong Cafe opened in 2013 and it continues to sell small household items and petrol among other things.

Welcome to Koh Trong Cafe

Well stocked shop

The cafe is a really nice spot to rest whilst on your journey around the island with a large shaded area and plenty of seats. There are even hammocks, a WC, and an English menu. There are three dogs who live at the cafe, all named KiKi as well as many roaming chickens and chicks chirping away.

The cafe is run by the very friendly Mrs. Wan Thou who makes a very good strong coffee!

Signs For Koh Trong

There is currently a lack of any clear signage on Koh Trong. Whilst this isn't really a problem for the residents, some simple signage and information can be really useful for self-guided tourists.

We are currently working with the community tourism chief Mr. Bun Ban to create a cohesive network of signs for the island. We aim to identify the 'top sights', have k.m. markers for the main circuit, direction signs where needed, a new large map, and later on some information on the sights and island life.

As a test we painted k.m. 'beach' signs to look at the colour combinations. We are using the only type of paint available in the whole of Kratie, which is a high gloss enamel, great for metal but not so easy to use on wood! The wood we are using is salvaged boards that are used in cladding the houses here.





We met with Mr. Bun Ban again once these initial signs were completed and it was fantastic to see how pleased he was with them so far. During the time we were painting them we had daily visitors, young and old all showing real interest in what we were doing. It was only once we had written the Khmer under 'beach' that the work was fully understood. The Khmer script actually reads "beach of the river Mekong" as "beach" in itself doesn't translate correctly.

The colour chosen for us to use throughout was green as it related to eco-toursim and we learnt a valuable lesson regarding the lettering. It is required by the government that all signs must have the English script positioned after the Khmer so it's lucky that we didn't proceed as we had started. We'll also use the correct Khmer abbreviation for 'k.m.' on the new signs.

So we now have 7 location sights, 7 direction arrows, and four K.M. signs to create. These so far have all been cut and the backgrounds painted green. We'll show the progress in further updates.

Cooking Kralan

Kralan is something of a speciality in Kratie. It is not uncommon to see sellers dotted along the roads with bundles carefully weighed and bound into neat parcels. If you are unfamiliar with Kralan it is a dish of sticky rice and beans cooked inside bamboo. The recipe itself is quite simple, using ingredients and bamboo packaging that are found in abundance. The preparation and cooking are a different story all together. 

Cooking started at 8am, the beans were toasted (check out the slippers) and steamed and the rice was washed and covered to stop the chickens from feasting. Meanwhile the men set out to find the perfect bamboo just outside the front of the house.

Three hours later it was time to start mixing things together, we had 10kg of rice and there was a lot of debate over how much sugar, salt, condensed milk and fresh coconut to add. The debate draws in a few more cooks and soon there are 5 women tasting, mixing, adding and re-tasting. By the time the final mix is agreed upon the men have got to work cutting the bamboo and the children have got hungry and started to drink the condensed milk.

At 1pm we were ready to start filling the bamboo. The end is capped off with the fibres from the fresh coconut and soon there is a wall of fire burning just behind us. Each Kralan is roasted against the fire for 3-4 hours and turned regularly for even cooking. I am jokingly invited to warm myself by the blazing fire and reminded that it is cold in my county.

At 4pm the first batch is ready but it can’t be eaten yet, first the outside of the bamboo must be carefully peeled away. One by one children and adults walk away with their prize and the cooking goes on until 10pm, a full 14 hours since we started.