The village of Kompong Pluk is a friendly, other-worldly place where houses are built on soaring stilts about 6m high. Nearby is a flooded forest, inundated every year when the lake rises to take the Mekong’s overflow. As the lake drops, the petrified trees are revealed. Exploring this area by wooden dugout in the wet season is very atmospheric.
Prices to visit have been fixed too high at US$20 per person for a boat and, when you add up all the separate costs, it may work out cheaper to sign up to a budget tour out of Siem Reap.
There are two ways to get to Kompong Pluk. One is to come via the floating village of Chong Kneas, where a boat (1¼ hours) can be arranged from US$55 return, and the other is to come via the small town of Roluos by a combination of road (about US$7 by moto or US$20 by taxi) and then the boat. All said, the road-and-boat route will take up to two hours, but it depends on the season – sometimes it’s more by road, sometimes more by boat. The new road brings the dry season access time to around one hour. Tara Boat also offers day trips here for US$60 per person.
