The Floating Village of Kompong Phhlup

Kompong Phhlup is' an incredible village of bamboo skyscrapers that rise from the lakeshore like a set from   the film 'Waterworld' as my guidebook says.We thought we had seen examples of the Cambodian people's courage, creativity and resourcefulness in the face of extreme challenges and deprivation until, Daniela, a fellow traveller from Germany, who is very interested in the work of the foundation, and I travelled to the village and were stunned by what we saw.

We travelled 40km by tuktuk and arrived at the boat community village and landing stop, the boats can only be owned and driven by members of the community, this is another project for empowering local people. Our boat was driven by Lai whose father owned the boat and we were her first passengers ever. On one side of the river, as you can see the houses are built on soaring bamboo stilts some 6 or 7 metres high - in the rainy season,(June to September),he water laps the top floor of these 'skyscrapers'.

You can also see the life on the river, the floating shop and school and clinic, and even the 'school bus' delivering the children home after classes. People were fishing everywhere or beating the fish out of nets with what looked like badminton racquets. The lake Tonle Sap, is fed by the Mekong river which floods it in the rainy season and brings valuable nutrients and migrating fishstock. Around October the level of the river begins to fall and the lake becomes one of the world's richest sources of freshwater fish. There are howver threats to the supply of fish through environmental challenges, the construction of dams upriver and some overfishing.

I also inserted some photos of the fish being gutted and dried in preparation for smoking as I know at least one reader who would be interested in this process!

You can judge for yourself about the harshness of this life and you can see the quality of the houses but everywhere the people waved and called out to us while they got on with their work.

On the other side of the river, which is inaccessible by road, the houses were just barely lifted off the ground, and Esa, our driver, explained that these house were built at the end of each rainy season, crops were planted, beet and water vegetables, when the floods  come, the houses are rolled up and taken away in boats back to the village which is higher than the river until the cycle starts all over again. Below is an example of their ingenious irrigation machine which they would pull from field to field