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Published: February 4th 2013
A quick blog for Siem Reap and the floating village of Chong Khneas
Siem Riep is a strange place, it’s a bit like the Disney land of Asia, it’s very commercial and ludicrously touristy. Most tourist fly in to Siem Reap to see the temples then head straight out destined for the beaches of Thailand which is a shame. Just seeing Siem Reap will give you the feeling that Cambodia is a rich and tourist filled place where there is plenty of tourist dollars to spread around, which is very much not the case in the rest of the country.
just outside of Siem Reap is the floating fishing village of Chong Khneas on the mighty Tonle Sap lake which is the biggest lake in Asia. the village is made up of about five thousand people who fish the lake and spend most of their time on the lake in their floating houses. The guide book warned that this was very touristy but we wanted to get away from Siem Reap for a day and also see Tonle Sap so we decided to do this trip. the first thing that struck us was the cost, for a
hour trip is was $40 usd. We were assured that 30% of this went straight to the village and that the operator used its profits to help with infrastructure, I cannot say if this was true or not?
We got there early as we wanted to beat the rush and I am glad we did, the trip out to the village was nice and peaceful and we enjoyed weaving past the house boats as people went about their daily life. We stopped at a floating crocodile farm where the conditions that the crocs were kept in did not seem to be very humane. On the way back we also stopped at a floating aid station where they explained that all the food on the boat was destined to the local orphanage and we were asked if we wanted to contribute. We talked to the guy on the boat and it became apparent that although the food had already been bought for the orphanage it would help if we donated. As I prefer to make donations directly to the charity and not a middle man I declined and he attempted to strong arm me into buying a $60 usd sack
of rice(with the help of my guide). The only way round this was to jump onto our boat and demand the guide cast off. As we were the first boat to leave that day we got a taste of how busy it is mid morning as boat after boat of Asian tourist headed past us on the way to the floating village, I stopped counting at 20 boats.
I have mixed feelings about this trip and the guide book does warn you how touristy it is, so if you do decide to go be mindful of that.
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Emma
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the pylons
Hi ads we sat in that first pub on the right upstairs next to the pylon and it kept flashing and cracking all night. not very safety conscious....