Kampong Phluk

Kompong Phluk is a floating village located in the middle of Cambodia‘s largest lake, Tonle Sap. The term “floating” is a bit misleading: the houses are actually built on very tall stilts around 8 meters high. During the rainy season, the lake rises and covers the stilts, giving the illusion that the homes are floating in the water. We learned that these types of villages are built in the middle of the lake to make it easier for fishermen and rice farmers to gather during harvest season.

Kompong Pluk is a community of Vietnamese-Cambodians who live on Tonle Sap year round. Their houses are on stilts and you see children paddling by on boats with their produce, livestock, or fish—all of which were grown on pontoon rafts or caught in the lake. There are many floating villages around the lake and those too accessible are too touristy. This village is still off the beaten track but the government is paving a road to the river so it won’t be long before the tour buses arrive.

The sun was just beginning to set as we paddled through knobbly trees and houses perched on stilts. In contrast to the drought-stricken dusty villages outside of Siem Reap, these serene sleepy rivers were a exhale of hot air.

With predatory boatmen imposing rip-off prices at Chong Kneas, the main staging post for journeys onto Tonle Sap Lake, Kompong Phluk has become a less grim alternative for those wishing to get out on Cambodia’s great lake. Even so, there have been reports that the boatmen here are beginning to pick up some nasty habits from their counterparts at Chong Kneas. The overall experience remains far more uplifting. Boat trips from this Khmer stilted village last for around three hours, cost $35 per person and include visits to the serene flooded mangrove forest and through the village itself.

Have you been here? Tell us about it below!

On my trip to Siam Reap me and a friend stopped by a lake village. Only an hour away from Siam Reap ware beautiful open skys and colored sunsets surrounded you. Ask any tuk tuk driver if they havent offered to take you there already. Really worth the visit, buy some trinkets and eat some fresh fried fish, when you get to the village, the fish just doesn’t get any fresher. On your boat trip to the one of the main floating town clusters if your lucky you will get fallowed by boats wanting to offer you varies things amongst them kids selling trinkets soda pop. Me and my traveling friend were lucky to get boarded much like im sure pirates did in ages past. Our boat driver never even lowered the throttle. The other boat maned by probably the father came along side and a very happy 10 year old kid embarked acting as cute as possible putting a can of soda pop in your face, how could you say no. 2 cans latter for me and my friend an a very handsome tip, and charged me a dollar for taking a picture of him, He felt like he hit bank with us, when you consider what a few dollars can buy for these people. The kid left waving and laughing his as off as his boat unhinged. Never felt so good about being suckered. More photos of the Floating Village visit.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/si36studios/sets/72157629566538179/

A visit to Siem Reap‘s floating villages is a love-it-or-hate-it experience. Visit with a good tour company and/or a good guide and you’ll come away with memories to treasure. Go on your own or with a disreputable travel agency and you’ll be over-charged, hassled like mad, and pressured to buy souvenirs to the point that you’ll loathe Cambodia. It’s these kind of experiences that have earned the country the title ‘Scambodia’ amongst backpackers. They are easily avoided, however, if you use a good tour company, such as Triple A Cambodia, which offers a Countryside Day Tour that begins with a bike ride through the palm-shaded villages near the Roluos temples, with stops to stroll a local market, visit small farms, and scramble ruins hidden in a forest. The second half of the tour consists of a very pleasant cruise through the fascinating floating villages of stilted timber houses (on water during monsoon season and on land during the dry season) to Kompong Kleang and the Vietnamese floating village, a visit to a pagoda, lunch at a local home, and a cruise out to the edge of the Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. On the day we did the tour we weren’t hassled or asked to buy anything once, our guide was a real charmer, and the woman at the home we visited delighted in our company as much as we did in hers. I’d do the tour again in a heartbeat.