The odd and not so odd things you'll see in Chong Khneas: Can you tell which is which?

One of the smaller houseboats of Chong Khneas.
A palatial two-storey stilt mansion in Lake Tonle Sap. — GRAHAM SIMMONS
A palatial two-storey stilt mansion in Lake Tonle Sap. — GRAHAM SIMMONS

Excerpt from Sprung from the water

Saturday January 30, 2010
Graham Simmons
Malaysia Star

Chong Khneas, Lake Tonlé Sap, Cambodia

They are like immigrants anywhere. The mainly Vietnamese inhabitants of Chong Khneas, a unique floating village in Cambodia’s Lake Tonlé Sap, have to struggle just to survive. And their task is made more difficult by the extraordinary seasonal changes in one of Asia’s biggest lakes.

The area of Lake Tonlé Sap increases at least fourfold in the wet season, its depth rising by more than 8m. Then, during the dry season, the 1,100 families have to move several kilometres out towards the centre of the lake, taking with them all their amenities, including a floating school, fish processing factories, floating churches and mosques, and even a floating basketball court. This doesn’t exactly make life easy.

Chong Khneas is just one of around 170 floating villages in Lake Tonlé Sap. It’s also the easiest to get to from Phnom Penh, which accounts for its popularity as a day-trip escape from Siem Reap. In the wet season, Chong Khneas is about 11km from Siem Reap via Highway 63; the distance increases to anything between 12km and 15km in the dry season.

We set out on a boat cruise of Chong Khneas, picking a modest-looking covered boat parked at a floating jetty. A cruise of around 60-90 minutes costs US$11 (RM38) for a small boat (holding up to ten people) or US$22 for a larger boat. Individual passengers may be charged up to US$10 a head.

Fishing is the main source of livelihood, and it’s uncanny to see a full-scale fish processing production line out in the lake. Some of the fish caught are tiny riel, used to make the Vietnamese fish sauce nuoc nam. The villagers even have a crocodile farm, where baby crocs are raised in pretty miserable conditions to maturity, then skinned for the export market.

With Chong Kneas now seeing so many day-trippers, a few tour operators are offering trips to other floating villages.

The province of Kompong Chhnang has a couple of floating villages — Phoum Kandal and Chong Kos — not far from the town of Kompong Chhnang, while Pursat province boasts the biggest ethnic Vietnamese village of them all — Kompong Luong, complete with cafés, shops and even an ice-making plant.

Nearer to Siem Reap, the villages of Kampong Phluk and the much larger Kampong Khleang are easily accessible by public transport along Route 6, via the villages of Roluos and Domdek respectively. It’s surprising that no-one has yet come up with the idea of a floating hotel. This would enable an extended stay including trips to outlying floating villages.

Maybe that’s a project for an enterprising reader.