As there isn’t much to do in Siem reap besides visiting the Angkor Wat area, I and my Cap Vert friend decided to visit the Siem Reap Floating village in Tonle Sap lake.
The village is about 2h away from the city center by car, and I believe there is no public transportation until there, so you need to do it on a tour unless you have a motorbike or whatever…
We booked the tour at Funky Flashpackers and it lasted half day with sunset in the lake. The Siem Reap Floating village is open to tourism recently, and you can see it clearly once you are there. It is one of the poorest places I have been, and they are hoping that tourism will help to bring more income to the families that live there.
I went during the dry season, so the village wasn’t flooded… I can imagine that this place is much more charming when the streets are flooded and the only way to drive among those wood houses is by boat. I honestly don’t remember the time we left the city, but it was after lunch. As the journey on a van takes 2h, we have a 30 min stop half way. During this stop, we were able to witness a Cambodian wedding. A very humble ceremony that I have never seen before so, along with other tourists, we were standing nearby to watch it. They are playing music and the place is colorfully decorated. It is just next to the main road in the middles of the dirt with cows passing by.
We don’t watch it until the end as we have to proceed on our journey.
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Our next stop is in the place where the boats are. The water looks very very muddy as we are at the end of the dry season and the canal doesn’t have much water. That was the reason why we got stuck 3 different times while our boat driver was attempting to row. Every time, he needed to jump off the boat and pull it by hand to get it able to float on the low water lever again. That wasn’t cool to watch as it was looking like such a hard task for just 1 man while that boat had so many people inside…
We are sailing among the poor houses of Siem Reap Floating village made of sticks and palm tree leaves. I have been before in a floating village in Myanmar, but this one was looking so much poorer and I can’t tell exactly why. This boat ride doesn’t take very long until we stop to visit the Siem Reap floating village on foot. I was expecting much more of this place than this. We walked about 10-15 min among the houses where people didn’t look happy or smiley like in Myanmar. They were staring a lot as I’m sure they are not so used to tourists. We saw a lot of fish being dried, which is apparently their main income, but I’m afraid these people face some difficulties during the dry season as the fish is not so abundant.
We pass through a school where we are “attacked” by several people very insistent trying to sell material to help the school with a very high price. I didn’t like this part at all. They were really annoying and embarrassing. I hate when people look at tourists as a bunch of money! I’m sure we are already helping by being there.
Anyway, this was a visit to a floating village, and all we did is walking 15 min on the street that wasn’t flooded. I would actually like to spend more time there, walking in more streets… I don’t know… just something more… It was kind of disappointing.
After that, we get on a bigger boat as the water level is higher here, and sail away to the lake itself where there are 2 touristy restaurants. There is no need for more as there aren’t’ so many tourists going there. The restaurants are in the middle of the water, but I can see people walking nearby, so I believe the water level isn’t really high. All we do there is waiting for the sunset time to get on the boat again. Meanwhile, you can order expensive food cause there is nothing else nearby. I was more disappointed to know that now we will just sit there and wait for the time to go. The floating restaurant has cages with crocodiles and snakes and many spider webs. At least it has a staircase to the top where we can sit on the floor and relax for a while. And maybe this was a very interesting part of the tour: Just staying there and listen to the sound of the water that surrounds you as well as many foreign languages from other tourists downstairs.
A little boy that also was on the boat come up and start offering massages. Of course, I’m sure he is not doing that for free, so I don’t want. Thank you! But he did some massages to other tourists… I’m glad I went with a friend on this tour otherwise I had met no one else and the waiting time had been a bit more painful.
The sky starts to announce orange tones so it’s time to get on the boat so we can see the sunset on it. We go a bit further and stop for a while to watch the sky and clouds changing shape. We stop for a bit and then start heading back. At least we are able to see the sun setting while we are going back the same way.
We get off the boat on the same place where we got in, but this time we had vans already waiting for us, so sailing time was shorter than before.
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Honestly, I wasn’t impressed with this Siem Reap floating village and tour and I wouldn’t do it again. Maybe being dry season took away the charm of the place, or maybe I have seen much better in Inle Lake and this one was disappointing. If you never saw a floating village before, you can go to Siem Reap floating village, but do it after the rainy season. This wasn’t a floating village when I visited.
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-I have noticed a curious fact on the previous days in the city, but now I noticed it even more. People are wearing pajamas everywhere. In the street, in the restaurant, while they serve your food and I was really curious about it. I heard that it means wealthiness, as it means you can afford to have one piece of clothing just for sleeping. If this is true it is a sad truth.-
Stay at Mad Monkey Hostel in Siem Reap:
