sunset of Mekong River
I will continue and complete my Cambodia’s story, with this beautiful Mekong River cruise, by skipping the story to Toul Sleng Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields.
The second evening when we were in Phnom Penh after shopping at Russian Market, we experienced the rich life and the magnificent sunset of Mekong River. We arrived at the central riverfront area of Phnom Penh and took some photos at the Royal Palace. Then we continued to the jetty nearby and boarded our boat. It was an old fashioned double decker boat and of course we went for the upper deck for better view.
Chams
We begin to feel the cool breeze of the river and relaxing everything around us. The boat cruised along the central riverfront area and provided picturesque views of the riverfront area including Royal Palace, Wats, significant landmarks, and also Phnom Penh skyline.
Then, the river cruise experience became rural when the boat crossed to the other side of the bank. Here, we met the Cham and visited Cham tribal village.
The Cham are a minority Muslim tribe in Cambodia and they speak Malay language. Most of them are fishermen and they spent their entire life on the boats. Everything just happens on the small boats as we saw on our tour, kids jumping into the river for bath, women cooking on boats, and men out for fishing.
They are living very poor life as they hardly have access to information, good education and training like we get back home. We gave them some goods and monetary donation and continued our tour further down the river, with dramatic river scenery, fishing villages and extensive fishing activities.
Soon the sun started to fall below the horizon, it turned fiery yet romantic. The evening sun illuminated from the rear of Royal Palace and gave us striking silhouette images. Everyone on board kept taking shots before the sun disappeared behind the clouds.
Cham little girl
The cruise took exactly 1 hour and we returned to the jetty near the central riverfront area for dinner. We enjoyed the cruise and discovered the beauty of Mekong River, the true Mother River of Southeast Asia.
On the next day, we left Phnom Penh and flew back to Malaysia. We loved the place and enjoyed so much on this trip even though it was only a short trip. It’s one of the best places for travelling, finding culture, nature and mystical wonders.
Special thanks to Kenn-Wai for lending his 17-50mm Tamron lens. May all beings be happy. Sharing more shots of the mystical river and the Cham tribe. This set of photos will be the last series of photos from my old camera.
royal gate
Khmer kids
Royal Palace of Cambodia
lotus seeds (edible)
our pilot of tour
walking to the river cruise
opaque brown water of Mekong River contrasts with the green hue of river bank
central riverfront area of Phnom Penh, view from the Mekong River's cruise
Cham fishing boat on Mekong River
tribe on Mekong River, boats are their homes
naked Cham boy just love the river
Cham lady living on boat
Cham children
"candy?"
asking for
Cham
kayaking on Mekong River
sunset of Mekong River
fishermen's life
Khmer ladies
tuk-tuk
