Photo Essay – A cruise on the Mekong river

On our trip to Phnom Penh we booked and went on a short cruise on the Mekong River, to see the ways of people who make a living on this vast river.

There were a couple of options available for a cruise, like you can visit some other local islands that are only linked by ferries, or the silk island (this is extremely touristy), or a normal 2 hour cruise, etc. We just booked a regular cruise as we didn’t have much time and we were on a budget; but this too was super fun. This river was also quite a bit of a surprise to us. For starters, it is huge more like a sea than a river and this size was just in the dry season so I fail to imagine how it will be after the rains. Additionally, we learnt a lot about the local life on the river here and below is a glimpse of the same through a black & white lens.

1. There is an entire community here that lives on boats as the one in the pic below and fish for a living. They only dock for selling the fish, going to markets for shopping and to the places of worship. Else the entire families live on the boat.

The house boat on the Mekong river

2. A local fisherman fishing in the river –

A local fisherman

3. An entire family that lives on a single boat –

An entire family on a boat – Mekong River

4. People living on boat houses like on the Tonle Sap Lake –

Boat Houses on the Mekong River

5. A sand collector –

A Sand Collector

6. Beautiful Villas of the rich by the river –

Villas by the Mekong River

7. Local ferries that help transportation from one island to the other. These are important as many of these islands are not connected by road.

A local ferry for island hopping

Enjoy 🙂