Kampong Chhnang Floating Village

Leaving the northwestern Cambodian town of Pursat I headed south on the national highway 5 towards my next stop, Kampong Chhnang. I’m getting the hang of riding on these Cambodian highways now. The oncoming traffic that seems to ignore you and use your lane to over take even though you are clearly in their path. You’ve got to budge over. Usually there’s a motorcycle lane, but it’s often full on crater sized potholes, sand, school kids on bikes and plenty of mopeds using the wrong side of the road. If your lucky the car coming at you in your lane will give you a flash of the headlights to say ‘you better move son!’.

After stopping at a road side shack for a bowl of beef grizzle soup I arrived in Kampong Chhnang. The town is on the bank of huge river and the houses are on stilts.

After finding a guesthouse I headed back out, planning to take some photos around sunset. Near the river two ladies came running out into the road and got me to stop the bike. They were shouting ‘go by boat?’. I asked where, and they said to see the floating village. I figured why not, and paid them $15 for a two hour boat ride. That’s a lot of money, but I’m a crap haggler. It turned out to be worth it though.

The floating villages were amazing. It was so calm and peaceful out there on the water being paddled around by my two guides. They lived there on the water. They explained that there was a Vietnamese village, a Cambodian village and also a Muslim area.

I picked a great time to go. As the sun set the village was bathed in soft golden light.

And then the sun disappeared behind the mountain…

The next day I drove the the capital, Phnom Penh. I spent an hour just riding around the city not knowing where I was going. Anarchy rules the road here, but it works just fine. I’m only staying the night. The beach is calling. Tomorrow, Kampot and bohdi villa which was recommended to me while I was in Laos. It’s not quite the beach, but they have bungalows on the river and tree houses you can stay in. Seems like a good place to stay en route before I get my first taste of the actual open ocean in Sihanouveville.