Day 259: Kampong Plouk
We only had one activity planned for today, so we were able to sleep in and get a later start. After stuffing ourselves with omelets, waffles, muesli, fresh fruit and several types of pastries at the FABULOUS buffet breakfast, we met up with our driver and headed out to the fishing village of Kampong Plouk.
Siem Reap is located 50km from Tonle Sap Lake – along with the Mekong Delta, this body of water is the main life-sustaining food source of the country, providing irrigation water for rice fields and, of course, lots of fish. There are several floating villages in the area, where everything from the homes to the stores are on boats that move around the area depending on the season. When we asked our driver for recommendations as to which one was the most scenic to visit, he suggested we skip the floating villages and go to Kampong Plouk instead – a pastoral Venice, where the entire village is built on towering stilts within the river.
Buying our tour tickets to visit the fishing village of Kampong Plouk
Rice fields flank the riverbanks
The river is the only way to access the village, as the roads can disappear completely depending on the water level – at one point we pass a true “Bridge from Nowhere to Nowhere”
Lindsay & Igor riding down river in a Cambodian longboat
Driving down “main street” of Kampong Plouk – a fishing village of about 3,000 residences
Unlike the “floating villages,” Kampong Plouk is a permanent settlement where the buildings are built on stilts
All the houses tower above the river on stilts – some up to 10m high!
A colorful neighborhood in Kampong Plouk
A very important building in the village: both the school and fishery office are located here
Unsurprisingly there is an ornate Buddhist temple sitting on a riverbank hillside, but the village also has a Christian church on stilts
Our driver points out cages floating the river that are full of small crocodiles. Given the many leather stores in Siem Reap, we’re guessing these are farm-raised for meat and leather
Flooded mangrove forests surround the area
During the rainy season, these women make their living fishing in the mangroves. But in the off season, they make additional income by paddling tourists through the trees
Leaving our motorized longboat for a slow, quiet tour through the mangrove forest
Here’s our floating market! A half dozen boats wait for us in the mangroves to try and sell us snacks and drinks. We bought some bananas to be polite, but passed on the drinks (our tour tickets actually included a free drink each, that we still hadn’t opened as we weren’t really thirsty). However, once we made one purchase, the woman seemed to think she had a chance to upsell us, and started suggesting we buy USD $3 candies or a USD $1 soda as a gift for our driver – we decline as we are pretty sure the driver isn’t going to actually eat or drink anything we buy her, but is more likely to return the gift to the floating market and split the profit. Instead, we give her an unopened can of Coke and a cash tip at the end of the tour – she reluctantly took the Coke, but her eyes lit up at the dollar bill!
Breaking out of the dense mangrove forest to the open waters of Lake Tonle Sap
The lake is massive, at 6,000 sq mi it looks more like a bay than a lake – we can’t even see the opposite shore!
We are visited by another floating minimart as we float in Tonle Sap Lake
We return to the resort for a relaxing afternoon in our room
Filling up on snacks and bubbles during Happy Hour
So, the night before, we had some rather noisy neighbors check-in upstairs (they sounded like giants, with ridiculously loud, thumping footsteps and for some reason, they kept dragging furniture all around their room). We were so exhausted from our full day of activities, that we didn’t have the energy to complain, and quickly passed out despite the noise. Tonight, however, we knew the annoyance would keep us up, so we asked our concierge if there was another room available that we could switch to. As a result, we got upgraded to a bigger “Sunset Suite” on the top floor! Seriously, we’re losing track of how many “second honeymoons” we’ve had at this point.
Living it up in the lap of luxury in Cambodia