Kratie, 2009, Longed for in Seattle, 2020

"Eight dollars."

"No, ten dollars."

"No, eight."

"How about twelve?"

 This is a familiar dialogue to anyone who has traveled in SE Asia, with one difference--the motorcycle driver was the one who insisted that I pay him eight dollars for our forthcoming trip to the 100 Column Temple area outside of Kratie, while I was the one venturing into twelve dollar territory. At that point we both cracked up, as my traveling companion shook her head and said "I never thought I'd live too see this kind of role reversal."

 Welcome to Kratie, a town that was as close to heaven as I am ever  going to get and a place I dreamed of almost every night when I came home to Bangkok. It was a place where traffic consisted of a very few expensive, well-kept cars along with many motorcycles, bicycles, and pony carts (driven by men who stood upright, like surfers) that hauled freight, not tourists. 

 The Mekong was generously revealed in Kratie. Development lay across the street--the river was bordered by a long pedestrian walkway and a wall wide enough to sit on--even for broad barang bottoms.  At night beer stalls with tables sprang up on the walkway and a small cluster of food vendors at its far end  fed people all day.

 There were hotels that probably were "luxurious" with aircon and hot water--I’ll never know. I was thoroughly happy with the reasonable pleasures of the U Hong II guesthouse--a clean room with a river view, two fans and a cold-water shower with enough water pressure to spray-clean a battleship. An open-air cafe provided great coffee, a baguette and fresh fruit every morning--and a splendid view of a Kratie street waking up.

 It was wonderful to spend time in a place that accepted travelers without disrupting its patterns for them. The Kratie market was for residents--souvenirs had yet to raise their ubiquitous heads, although beautiful fabric could easily have stripped me of every cent I possessed. Yet when I needed a pair of shoes that would let me explore the area in comfort, a woman went to another stall to find my over-sized-38 rubber soles--customer service that stateside department stores would marvel at. My traveling companion found industrial-strength sunscreen at one little stall when the vendor plunged into a large, dusty carton and emerged triumphantly with it in hand.

 Dolphins were the only tourist attraction and I had mixed feelings about viewing them, but drawn by the chance to be on the Mekong, I went. Our driver frequently turned off the boat's engine and let us drift silently down the river, spotting the occasional fin or dolphin back, but the main enchantment was the Daliesque clumps of islands that floated past on a calm pewter ribbon of leisurely  current. I longed to go back in a couple of months, when the rains would bring the Mekong high above its present banks and the tips of trees would be all that could be seen of the sandbar islands that dominated the riverscape when I was there.

 Kratie was dauntingly picturesque, but I found myself trying to take snapshots of silence and tranquility, as well as of the more conventional snapshot subjects. As someone who grew up in very rural Alaska, living without the comforts of 20th century life, I was completely amazed to find myself at home near a river that is light-years from the Kenai or Anchor rivers that I grew up watching and loving, or the Yukon that was my benchmark for great rivers--until I saw the Mekong.

The one flaw in Kratie was all my fault. I’d chosen the hotel that had my traveling companion, Kim scrabbling at the door on our first evening in town, moaning forcefully, "Janet, let me in! Let me in!" I rushed to oblige her, feeling sure that the jovial town drunk who, well on his way to oblivion by four in the afternoon, had been transfixed by Kim's blonde hair, had followed her through the streets when we first arrived, slurring his welcome in Khmer and in English, and had probably now escorted her to the hotel.

 As soon as the door cracked open, Kim rocketed into our room. "Oh my god," she gasped, "the hallway is covered with cockroaches. I couldn't even see the floor."

 The Heng Heng's distinguishing feature was a verandah, open to the hallway, that faced the river and was quite enticing by day. At night it was the portal for every cockroach in town--the place for them to see and be seen obviously--and some of them apparently continued to hang out to prepare for the next night's debauch during the day, because we had noticed a few when we took possession of our room.  We had done our best to be nonchalant about them but learning that the Heng Heng's hallways became the cockroach version of Studio 54 when darkness fell was too much. Kim had discovered the U Hong II before returning to shriek for sanctuary and we moved there the next morning.

 "Why are you going?" the desk clerk at the Heng Heng asked. When Kim, with remarkable restraint, explained why, he chuckled indulgently and said, "Oh the cockroaches like to come and play in the light after dark." We waited for him to conclude with "You know-- those crazy cockroaches," but he seemed too absorbed in endearing cockroach memories to enlarge upon this theme.

 I had forgotten a scarf when I left the Heng Heng and on the morning I was to leave Kratie, I approached the entrance of the hotel to see if the maid had found it. As I drew near the open door, a miasma of stale air and cockroach urine billowed toward me. I covered my face and rapidly retreated. I like to think that the Heng Heng's roach colony now uses it as a red carpet, when they all enter the hotel hallways for yet another night on the town. ~Janet Brown