Kompong Phluk

There are several villages that make up this fishing community of around 3,000 people, who relocate their homes seasonally as the water levels of the lake alternatively swell and recede with the annual monsoon. A number of villagers live in stilted houses near the coast, while others live in floating houses, some of which have in-board motors.

In the dry season there is an island with a temple, school, market area, and areas for drying and smoking the daily catch. During the dry winters, when the waters of the lake are lowest, people can actually walk around the village and under the thatched bamboo and wood houses. During the dry season, temporary thatched buildings are constructed on the banks, and then removed before the rains begin.

When the rains do come, the waters of Tonle Sap rise, flooding the entire village. While the floating villages can move closer to or farther from shore as the lake alternatively swells and recedes, the stilted houses allow the villagers to stay in place while the lake rises upwards of 30 feet. As the lake rises, the villagers move their houses up successive levels of the stilts in order to stay above the high water line.

It is during the wet season, when the lake is full, that the boats come out, and everyone gets around by paddling from house to house, to market, or even to restaurants, churches, and wedding platforms. Vast mangrove forests surround the entire village, offering incredibly scenic locations for boat excursions into the flooded forests.

While a visit to Kampong Phluk may have once been a more ‘authentic’ experience than to the village of Chong Kneas, both are now heavily visited by large tour groups. Still, the famous stilted villages of the Tonle Sap are some of the most interesting sights on and around Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake, and as one of the most convenient, Kompong Phluk is a great experience for most visitors, even if tourism has become nearly as important as traditional forms of income.