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Life on the Lake, Vietnamese Floating Villages in Kampong Chhnang

Kampong Chhnang Travel Blog › entry 3 of 77 › view all entries

My Backpacking Journey through Southeast Asia at the end of 2006 and into 2007. The ups and downs of my trip and the many beautiful places I visited. Trully an Experience of a lifetime!

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Life on the Lake, Vietnamese Floating Villages in Kampong Chhnang

October 20, 2006

Village Hut

On the 20th, Makara (my cousin) and I set out for Kampong Chhnang, a 3 hour journey from Kampong Cham. It was only a quick visit to my cousin's in-laws. My original plan of visiting some ancient Khmer ruins was halted as I was informed that the only accessible means of transport would be a slow boat ride across the waters, which would take longer than a day and I didn't have the time to do so on this trip.

Instead I went on a 1 hour boat tour on the Tonle-Sap Lake, visiting the Vietnamese Floating Villages. The experience was an eye opener as I witnessed the hardship of living on the water, and the lack of infrastructure to support their livelihood.

While the little kids were jumping in the water, parents were preparing food for the evening and grandparents relaxing in their hammocks chatting to one another.

Witness to History

The 1 hour boat ride cost a measily 15000 Riel (approx $3.50US).

After the tour around Kampong Chhnang provincial town, we headed back towards Salar Leq Prum (School Number 5) where my cousin's in-laws lived. Along the way we stopped off at countless local temples to pay our respects and to take some snap happy photos. There were also quite a few mosques in this area as many of the inhabitants were of Cham ethnicity.

The Cham's migrated to Cambodia after their home country (Champa, today's Central Vietnam) was taken over by the Vietnamese. They have settled in Cambodia and live peacefully with the local Khmers. The majority of ethnic Cham's practice Muslim, however their original religioun was Hindu and many Cham-Hindu ruins can still be found in Central Vietnam.

That evening we had dinner at my cousin's in-laws and settled to bed early as there was no where to go or nothing to do as we were in the countryside.