Charles B. Jones
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Cambodian Online

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24-Aug-2005
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The Mysterious Mekong Dolphins, Amazing Ancient Temples and the Mighty Mekong
by "Charlie Mango" - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Mekong River Cruise Montage 1

My friend Phanna and I decided to head back to his hometown of Kratie (pronounced Kratchey) to visit his family and find and photograph the rare and mysterious freshwater Mekong Dolphins.

Leaving from the riverfront in Phnom Penh at 8AM, we soon wound our way through the weekend traffic exiting the city and headed north along the Tonle Sap River.

Crammed into the proverbial Cambodian Toyota Camry taxi with seven others ($35-40 per taxi for the trip from Phnom Penh to Kratie), I was allocated the space in the front seat jammed against the door, setting on my feet as there wasn't enough room for both Phanna and myself to set on the seat and also allow space for the driver to shift gears during the more treacherous and traffic laden parts of the journey.  

For the next 5 hours, with my upper torso more outside the cab than inside we dodged in and out of traffic, honking the horn constantly at the never ending streaming obstacles of humanity, animals and vehicles. To put it mildly, a rented taxi jammed with seven other brave souls is probably not for the faint of heart as the first hour of the trip is a constant game of playing chicken and is probably better travelled with your eyes closed and fast asleep!

As I chose to keep mine open (since I was hanging out the window anyway), the 1st of the inevitable southeast Asian traffic accident appeared only a half an hour later with a motorbike lying on its side and a young woman laying in the arms of another woman next to it, crying and sobbing.

Passing this scene we continued north and at 09:30 AM made the first of several stops, this one at a very crowded restaurant. After a 15 minute break during which I had some soup and tea, we turned east on Highway 7, headed towards Kompong Cham. At 10:20, nearly two and a half hours after leaving Phnom Penh, we started over the new Japanese built bridge and were crossing the Mighty Mekong. 

As many times as I have seen and travelled on this river, it has never failed to leave me in awe and this time it is no different, for as we climb quickly into the sky on the bridge, the river beneath you seems to dominate everything for as far as you can see, spreading itself to what I estimated to be over a kilometre and a half wide and running north and south for as far as the eye can see. 

It is now September, the height of the rainy season and the river is full and straining its banks.  The current is wicket; rushing towards Vietnam at speeds that require most barges, ferries and other vessels to hug the shore lines in their efforts to stay out of the fastest parts of the river and make some progress against the torrid current.

Most people don't really understand the size and power of this river.  Here in Cambodia however they do as it is the only place in the world where another large and powerful river, the Tonle Sap, has its own southerly flow reversed at the confluence of the two rivers in Phnom Penh due to the shear power and strength of the Mekong River's waters rushing to Vietnam, the Mekong Delta and the South China Sea.

During this period as the levels of the Mekong rise, the Tonle Sap is backed up and the river reverses direction and starts flowing northwest with the lake enlarging from 2,500 square kilometers to over 13,000 square kilometers with the depth increasing from 2.2 meters to over 10 meters. 

It now isn't long before we exit Kompong Cham and the road improves dramatically as the next leg of the journey has been rebuilt with the assistance of an Asian Development Bank loan and quite frankly, they have done a damn good job as the road is smooth and more importantly, very wide and straight.

Along this section, I start to notice new tree farms around almost every bend, laid out in perfectly straight lines that go on for hectares and hectares.  As this region in past years has been a target of massive logging operations and pulp and paper mills, it is refreshing to see an effort to replenish what nature once gave us.

I do notice however numerous trucks still filled with logs either setting along the highway or travelling in various directions.  It is obvious to anyone but a blind person that logging is still an economic reality and seems to be still occurring on a rather large scale although supposedly outlawed some years ago.  Maybe someone has a special permit?

I also take note that the soil here is obviously very fertile and the vegetation very lush and thick.  This is quite a contrast to the land in and around the temples of Angkor and the town of Siem Reap which is difficult to impossible to grow anything on and during the dry season becomes incredibly hard and baked, seeming to turn almost into stone.

After a couple more stops along the way to let the obviously pregnant woman passenger in the rear seat to throw up and to fuel up (and throw up again), we pull into Kratie town at 1:20 PM, which quite frankly does not leave one with a terribly wonderful great impression as the buildings are drab and the road turns to dust and rock again.  This however is the wrong impression as the town turns out to be a wonderful, quaint backwater that reminds me in many ways of Nong Khai in Thailand (that sets across the Mekong from the capital of Laos, Vientiane).With only a couple minutes more, we are pulling up in front of Phanna's parent's home and they quickly greet us with smiles and hugs. 

Panna's father turns out to be a very fascinating and extremely well educated man who has served in various capacities in the region including being directors of the World Food Program and the Kratie Province Rural Development Agency.  It isn't long before maps are flying out of drawers and I am getting a briefing on plans for the development and potential for the province.

It seems the local officials think that the economic salvation for the province after the "legal" demise of the logging industry is agriculture, specifically dairy farming.  A map that I now have shows me 6 massive tracks of land to the east of the Mekong and to the east and north of Kratie.  The area encompasses over 34,000 hectares of land and lies approximately 20 kilometres east and north of Krati bordering areas along the Prek Te, Kampi and Prek Kakol Rivers.  Land prices are discussed and quite honestly, I find the prices mentioned to be amazingly reasonable given their location, fertility,  proximity to Vietnam as well as river transport via the Mekong.

After a spot of late lunch, Phanna and I head off with his brother in law in (you guessed it) another Toyota Camry.  It seems that this model from Toyota is everywhere in Cambodia and in reality it is, from the beaches of Sihoukville to the trashy border town of Poi Pet, to the temples of Angkor, they are in fact everywhere!  Just why or how has to be a story in itself and it is hard to imagine where Toyota could have this model somewhere else on earth as they had to have all been shipped to Cambodia!

This time however, with 5 fewer people, the trip north out of Kratie is quite pleasant and with the air-conditioning on, free of dust and the usually inevitable grime that accumulates on your skin and face from a Cambodian road trip.

Our destination for this late afternoon trip is the extremely rare and very famous Mekong River Dolphins.  Although no one knows where this species came from or how they managed to come so far up the Mekong (and adapt themselves from salt water to fresh water), they are in fact here and living in several different pods (groups) in the waters of the Mekong.

The one pod we are headed for is called the "Kampi Pod" and seems to frequent where the Kampi and Mekong Rivers come together.  It seems this past season (2004), with the Mekong being the lowest it has been in over three decades, that the population has declined from the estimated 100 or so earlier in the year to less than 60 (according to some locals) due to having to move from their normal feeding grounds into unfamiliar and dangerous waters where they were caught up in nets or injured/killed by river vessels.

This species of dolphin is more formally named the "Irrawaddy" and has a rounded head with no beak, and a flexible neck. They can vary in color from dark and light blue- grey, to pale blue. It is grouped as an oceanic dolphin, although some dolphins may live in the freshwater of rivers all their life (such as the Ganges in India). This species of dolphin has a small triangular shaped dorsal fin with a rounded tip, below the centre of the back , and is a slow swimmer - usually moving in small groups. Irrawaddy dolphins are very similar to the shape of the Beluga (toothed whale), and to the shape of the Finless Porpoise with its blunt round head, so they are sometimes difficult to tell apart. They can have up to 40 teeth on their upper jaw, and 36 teeth on the lower jaw.

Adult Irrawaddy dolphins can grow to between 2.1 and 2.6 metres long, with new-borns about 1m in length and a fully grown Irrawaddy dolphin weighing between 90 and 150 kg. At birth they are as much as 12kg.

Although some travel guides indicate that the best time to see them is between the months of December to April, Phanna and I have no problem finding them immediately as Phanna had for many years been a tour guide while growing up and was intimately familiar with this area of the Mekong, the dolphins and their feeding grounds. After renting a boat and driver for $6 at the dock just south of the Kampi River, within minutes at least 2 if not more, broke the surface next to our small boat and with regularity over the next half hour we observed them as our young boat handler managed to keep us on "station" with the engine off, just meters from the entrance to the Kampi River.  (See the bottom of this article for more information concerning this wonderful creatures.)

As we wait for them to surface and as I make an effort to catch them with my Nokia digital camera, we discuss the area, its past, development and growth.  It is than that I learn that a proposal is on the table and is being seriously considered to build a dam in the very spot where we are watching these creatures feed and play. 

Although I am usually very much a realist and know here in Asia feeding people and providing them food, water and power will always override other environmental concerns (as well as the destruction of rare animal species), I secretly hope that this is one dam that isn't built.

As I watch a massive thunderstorm build to the north, we can hear the rolling thunder from its anger and I am wondering if it and its rains will head our way.  After watching it and the winds for a few more minutes, I determine that it most probably will not, at least for the next hour or so and after getting some more photos of fishermen and the their nets along the river banks, we turn the boat south and head for the parking area and dock where Phanna's brother in law is awaiting us.

After piling into the car again, I am surprised to find we turn left (north away from town) out of the lot onto the narrow, heavily potted lane that serves as the main road north and south along the Mekong.  After another 30 minutes or so and after passing through another village where the road makes a Y and forks off to the northeast, we stay on the section that parallels the banks of the Mekong and soon enter an area that has a very large, modern Wat (temple/pagoda) within easy view of the road and the Mekong.  It is only after pulling into this area that I understand just how large it is and find out it is the largest such Wat in Cambodia,  having exactly 100 large columns supporting its roof.

The Wat of a Hundred Columns

Wat Trasor Muoy Roi as it is formally called, is famed for its excellent wall paintings as well as the stupa dedicated to the Princess Nucheat Khatr Vorpheak who legend says was killed by a crocodile. Although very beautiful, I became much more mesmerized by a much smaller and far older wooden Pagoda setting on the grounds several hundred meters further inland and to the east.

As we pulled under a beautiful tree that dominates the area where the older Wat still stands, we noticed that no one was around except for one lone monk picking up palm branches.  It had been raining earlier and the ground around the temple was wet and muddy so we had to step carefully as we made our way inside.

After taking my shoes off, I was immediately drawn to a large setting Buddha which dominated the pagoda but was additionally surprised and fascinated to find a panoramic collection of hand-painted murals that rested on the walls above the height of the doors and windows.  They were spectacular!

As I snapped at least one photo of each, I listened to the translation from Phanna of the monk's description and history of the murals and the pagoda itself.  I was told that the temple's name was "Preak Heak Kok" which means "high ground" as the ground on which it set was higher than the surrounding area and was never flooded by the Mekong when it overflowed its banks. Articles from others however refer to it as "Wat Preah Vihear Kuk" so I am not exactly sure what its proper name is.

I also listened to several stories about its history and was told it dates back to 1142 AD when the original stone temple was built on the same spot.  The resident monk told us that the wooden temple that existed now was 346 years old but once again this seems to be in conflict with other writers who have indicated it to be over 700 years old.  I am more inclined to believe the younger age myself.

Stories were also relayed about its role in the recent fighting in 1983 when a major battle took place on the surrounding grounds.  Supposedly three monks were killed and several buildings were destroyed, one of which still has the concrete steps leading up to an obviously empty space, pot marked with the battle's scares.

There was also another story concerning this very old and beautiful pagoda that was equally sad in that as recent as 1998 it was looted of many of its precious artifacts by a high ranking government official who was supposedly taking the items to Phnom Penh for safe keeping with the intent of putting them on display in the National Museum.  According to the monk however, the items might be "safe keeping" but they are nowhere to be found in the National Museum. Go figure.... Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

This story is ongoing and this is the first draft with many more photos, additions and changes to be made through the month of September.....

Sophanna Chheang (Phanna) can be reached in Phnom Penh at the Crystal Net Internet Cafe on Sisowath Quay (riverfront) or by phone at 012-725-032 or 011-445-464. He can also be reached via email at phanna_ratana2000@yahoo.com .  He is wonderful and knowledgeable young man who speaks fantastic English and is studying International Relations and Law.

Mekong River Dolphins

Diet:
Fish, crustaceans and squid

Behaviour:
The Irrawaddy dolphins usually swim in groups of six, or less. They rarely show themselves above the surface of the water, but sometimes may make low horizontal leaps. They may also do something called 'spyhopping', which is the name given to the activity of poking their heads out of the water - perhaps to have a good look around! They have also been seen to spit out water from their mouths whilst spy-hopping! The Irrawaddy dolphin species do not ride the waters infront of the bows of boats, but they do have a special relationship with fisherman on the Irrawaddy and Mekong rivers, by driving fish into their nets.
Distribution:
This species of dolphin lives in the shallow, tropical, and sub tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, around Indonesia, northern Australia, and southeast Asia. It prefers to live near to the coast and at the mouth of rivers. It also lives upstream in some tropical rivers, such as the river Irrawaddy in Burma - where the species gets its name from. It is unusual for an Irrawaddy dolphin to swim further than two kilometres away from the shore, because they prefer sheltered areas, and more cloudy/ turbid waters.

Population Size:
The population size of Irrawaddy dolphins is not known, mainly because they do not tend to show themselves above the surface of the water. They are also difficult to identify, because of their similarities to other whale and dolphin species.

Fascinating Facts:
When scared, the Irrawaddy dolphins can dive underwater for up to 12 minutes! The Irrawaddy dolphin is seen to be a sacred animal by fishermen in Vietnam. If they catch a dolphin in their nets, they will free it, and in areas along the Mekong river, a dead dolphin will be cremated and given a religious ceremony in respect! In at least one river village the dolphins help fishermen by rounding up fish and driving them into the nets.

Present Predicament:
Thousands of the snub-nosed dolphins once played in the Mekong, but experts believe there are now fewer than 100. The march toward economic development that has put the rest of the world's freshwater dolphins on the edge of extinction has finally caught up with the irrawaddies.
Modernization and globalization does not come without a cost. The impacts of tourism, pollution, dams, heavy boat traffic, and destructive fishing practices are slowly destroying the dolphin's river habitats. Yet, little has been done, perhaps due to the lack of funds and the support from the outside world. According to researchers, it takes six to eight years for a river dolphin to reach sexual maturity, and a pregnancy, which lasts 10 to 11 months, produces only one offspring. Thus, if the dying continues, there may not be enough dolphins left to breed a healthy group, drawing them even closer to extinction.
According to Mekong Fisheries Department, these dolphins are not being killed intentionally, but dwindling fish stocks mean fishermen are forced to use more destructive practices to bring in their catch. The extensive usage of nylon nets for fishing has directly caused this dwindling haul, and because of the poor hauls people tended to use longer nets or nets of fine meshes to catch more fish, which resulted in indiscriminate fishing. There were some groups that caught fish in illegal ways. They send an electric current or throw a grenade into the water, for instance, but the fishery bureau can do nothing but look on with folded arms because they have guns.
The main reason for river dolphins here to be in a critical situation is that the number of fish which river dolphins feed on is decreasing. Besides that, nylon nets or illegal fishing methods also take dolphins' lives. The bodies of dead dolphins have proven this.
Mekong river together with its animal and aquatic life are a natural heritage for Cambodian people and are a legacy for younger generation to witness and to see that those endangered species still alive. No Rome can be built in a day. Tackling this issue through education and awareness perhaps is the only long term investment one can fork out, with the confidence that there will be hope for the dolphins and Mekong River itself.

“The dolphins' presence is indicative of a rich river ecosystem. You save the Mekong River dolphin and you save the Mekong as a whole."
Ian Baird, a Laos-based researcher

The folktale, Pusao (meaning Mermaid):
Long, long ago, there was a family of three in a village. They were poor, but a girl in the family was very beautiful. A deity saw her and fell in love with the girl at first sight. He transformed himself into a snake and came down to the earth. The girl's father took the snake home. When they arrived at his house, the deity showed his real shape. He and the girl fell in love with each other and lived happily. But, soon the day of parting came. The deity disappeared, leaving a gold bar to them. The family became rich.
A farmer who had seen it took a snake home and made his daughter meet the snake, but it was just a big snake. The snake swallowed the farmer's daughter up to her shoulders. The farmer asked his neighbors for help. They cut up the snake's body with a butcher knife and rescued his daughter. But her body was completely covered with mucus.
She felt ashamed of herself and ran to the river to bathe, but she couldn't get rid of the slimy mucus. She was totally at a loss and jumped into water with a metal bowl on her head, with which she had poured water over herself. Then she suddenly became a mermaid. She came up to the water surface and said to her parents who were waiting for her on the bank, "Don't worry about me. I'll go to the different world." She dived into the water again.
River dolphins are called "mermaids" in Cambodia. In the past, rare people have seen dolphins by their own sights, instead they see them by drawing pictures, in which falsifying its head down to waist is a man, and the waist downward is fish with tail. Due to this traditional folktale, the dolphin was neither hunted nor its meat eaten. Some superstitious Cambodians believed they would never catch another fish if they touch the animal.

Many thanks to the following groups for providing very valuable information.
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS)
Mekong Dolphin Conservation Project (MDCP)
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)