After Angkor Wat, the second most popular tourist attractions in Siem Reap, Cambodia, are the floating villages. The huge Tonle Sap lake and river network are home to three "floating villages". We will talk about the floating villages in another post. In this post, we want to focus on an interesting activity one can embark upon while visiting one of these floating villages. 
We visited the Kampong Phluk floating village. During this tour, you have an option of taking a boat ride through flooded mangrove forests. The ride costs 5 USD per person. On each boat two adults (excluding the boat rower) are allowed.
The taxi boats that take one on the ride through the forest line up alongside the stilted restaurant on Tonle Sap. Tourists board the boats after paying the fare on the counter at the restaurant. For a long time, we were in a dilemma whether to take the ride or not. We were sure that it would be pretty lame.
However, at the end, we decided to take the ride mostly because we didn't want to miss out on anything. And it turned out to be a good decision at the end. Because even though the ride wasn't spectacular, it was definitely worth experiencing at least once.
The taxi boats take you through a mini floating market. These are small boats that sell miscellaneous goods. They are not real markets are only there for the benefits of the tourists. The shopkeepers wwill try to sell you notebooks and pencils and tell you that you can give these to the kids at the stilted villages. We did not buy these because we thought that the notebooks and pencils would find their way back to these shop keepers.
The ride through the mangrove forest wasn't too long. It took around 20 minutes. There were several other boats to keep us company. Boats were rowed by men as well as women and at times they had little children to keep them company and help steer the boat.
The mangrove forest was beautiful and peaceful. The water was still and the oars made a lovely melody as they struck the waters. I seem to remember some lovely birdsongs flitting through the tree canopy above.
Here is our second boat. Didi, Jeeju, and Nishu were on board here. The boats themselves were pretty sturdy though ripples from the motorboats passing through the main canal would rock them hard. At times it got a little scary.
All through my stay in Cambodia, I rarely came across anyone who didn't seem happy. Bright smiles were the norm. However, among the boat people, that spirit was reflected in only this lady. Everyone else was pretty serious.
The travellers seemed happy though. It was a relaxing experience. The forest was beautiful. The greens and blues from above were reflected in the water making everything sparkly and beautiful.
The boat people had to be experts to row through the dense forest of gnarled, twisted mangroves. We often had to bend our heads to avoid hitting the thick branches. One could lie on your backs in the boats and enjoy floating under the greenery.
This picture was clicked from the restaurant from where the boats picked us. This was also the alighting point. At this same restaurant, they also had a small crocodile farm, where there were several small crocodiles. By the time we got back, it was time for our cruise boat to leave for the sunset point. That experience will be covered in another post.
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