We spent our third day in Seam Reap going to Tonle Sap, a freshwater lake connected to the Mekong River. It was the suggestion of our kind tuk tuk driver. We have already hired him for 3 days now, spending the first 2 days in the jaw-dropping Angkor Wat. In the Tonle Sap, we went to a village built on stilts called Kampong Phluk which means “Harbor of the Tusks”. Kompong Phluk and the greater Tonle Sap lake is a UNESCO Biosphere reserve and is rich with unique plant species, fish, and animals, many of which find themselves endangered. From the road, we hired a boat to take us to the village.

The boat took us first to the Flooded Forest. It is the part of Kompong Phluk having the largest mangrove forest in the region. The area is under water for most parts of the year. We had to transfer to a smaller rowboat with only 2 persons per boat excluding the boatlady. Our boatlady was singing while rowing our boat into the mangrove forest.

The forest is about 6000 hectares and growing due to the community conservation efforts which discourage logging. Our boat ride took about 20 minutes and she returned us to the floating port where we can go back to our first boat.

We continued moving around the village. Kompong Phluk is actually a collection of three floating villages totaling somewhere between 2000 to 3000 residents. It is very clear that the community largely depends on fishing for survival.

During the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975 to 1979, the soldiers burned down the floating village homes and moved families to central work sites. The families began returning to the area after the fall of the regime to resume their lives as fishermen.

We didn’t know that the floating village exists in Cambodia until we went there. Thanks to our very kind tuk tuk driver and tour guide!