Visiting Koh Trong, Kratie

Do you have a Cambodian trip report you want to share? Post it here, and feel free to link to your blog if it's a travel blog for Cambodia, South East Asia, or anywhere really. You can ask and answer questions about travel advice in Cambodia or just share your pictures and videos with us. Most people who live in or visit Cambodia have also checked out nearby countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, and you can get to most of these countries by traveling overland, so put any travel plans, reviews or questions here. Discussions about dirt bike trails in here as well.
Anchor Moy
Expatriate
Posts: 13458
Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 11:37 pm
Reputation: 3974
Tokelau

Re: Visiting Koh Trong, Kratie

Post by Anchor Moy »

Revisiting Koh Trong. Update 2017:
A brand new highway has been built on Koh Trong.
Image
But since it is a one-lane highway, sometimes you have to move over for faster moving traffic.
Image
There is even a map so you won't get lost.
Image
And there is a tourist information centre.
Image
Taxi stand:
Image
Town centre, a wat, what else ?
Image
There is much talk of future beach development. Let them talk.
Image
Image
In other words, Koh Trong hasn't changed much. Electricity has been installed, and there is a new strip of concrete (the highway) leading to the island's only tourist resort, but the rest of the island is more or less untouched. Homestays are available for those who are looking for simple accommodation and local contact.
Image Image Image Image Image
User avatar
Username Taken
Raven
Posts: 13897
Joined: Mon May 19, 2014 6:53 pm
Reputation: 5962
Cambodia

Re: Visiting Koh Trong, Kratie

Post by Username Taken »

Soon to be Hipster Paradise. Destroyed forever.
Anchor Moy
Expatriate
Posts: 13458
Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 11:37 pm
Reputation: 3974
Tokelau

Re: Visiting Koh Trong, Kratie

Post by Anchor Moy »

Great article on Koh Trong island and check the link for the photos:

Heart of the Mekong
September 25, 2019

On the island of Koh Trong in the middle of the Mekong River, travellers can explore a vision of rural Cambodian life untouched by the clamour and chaos of the modern world – and, just a short drive away, an intimate encounter with some of the Kingdom’s last Irrawaddy dolphins

words by Paul Millar
photography by Thomas Cristofoletti

Nestled in the heart of the Mekong, the island of Koh Trong lies just a ten-minute ferry ride from the old market town of Kratie, five hours north of Phnom Penh. On the riverfront, travellers can wait with a cold drink in hand looking down over the dusty steps descending to the water’s edge from Jasmine Boat Restaurant. Beneath these blue eaves, road-weary guests gaze out across the river to the lush greenery of Koh Trong, bound by a salt-white expanse of sand left bare by the turning seasons.

It is here, on the edge of Koh Trong, that a visitor to this forgotten corner of Cambodia straddles the border between water, sand and sky, where the receding river has left its white bones shining beneath the sun. Thin green shoots whisper their way through the silt and smoke of distant fires, little lives fed by what the waters left behind. A floating house hangs still in the current; on its decks, a fisherman draws in his nets by inches. And it is here, when the red sun sinks below the trees and the sky is flooded with tones of burning iron, that you will glimpse a beauty that has endured since Koh Trong rose from the river’s depths aeons ago, before the memory of man.

But all that is still before you. Now, swaying with the current in the creaking ribs of the ferry, you watch as the blue tiles of the restaurant, the shimmering spires of the pagodas, the fading roofs of Kratie’s ageing colonial outposts lose their clamour and colour and join the rest of the outside world in blurry irrelevance. Now, as your boat glides silently into the shallows, you can give yourself over to stillness.

The island of Koh Trong is a snatch of rural Cambodian life largely undisturbed by the baggage of modernity that lies heavy upon the cities of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Ox-carts clunk along dry dirt roads weaving between fields of new rice. Rows of wooden houses line the winding lanes of the island, sheltered behind home-grown groves and gardens tended by local villagers. Koh Trong is no mere Potemkin village; aside from the occasional tuk tuk sputtering between the trees, the residents go about their daily lives with refreshingly little concern for the beaming tourists trundling about on fixed-gear bicycles.
https://discover-cambodia.com/heart-of-the-mekong-2/
Anchor Moy
Expatriate
Posts: 13458
Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 11:37 pm
Reputation: 3974
Tokelau

Re: Visiting Koh Trong, Kratie

Post by Anchor Moy »

This thread is a bit of a waste of time now the photos are gone, but I came across this video on Koh Trong eco-tourism, which is only about 6 months old, so will leave it here. They have very few tourists right now.
A bit of country life for you city folks.
User avatar
SternAAlbifrons
Expatriate
Posts: 5752
Joined: Sat Mar 23, 2019 11:31 am
Reputation: 3424
Location: Gilligan's Island
Pitcairn Island

Re: Visiting Koh Trong, Kratie

Post by SternAAlbifrons »

Username Taken wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:11 pm Soon to be Hipster Paradise. Destroyed forever.
AM is a hipster!!??

NOooo....

and here is me all this time thinking i was following an authentic Pastafarian guru.
'shattered.
Post Reply Previous topicNext topic
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: cautious colin, Deefer, dirtymacca, Joakim, ron100, ThiagoA and 172 guests