...Fool me Twice, Shame on Me

Alec Ledbetter
Jul 11, 2017
2 min read

We thought we had learned our lesson from the suit incident of Bangkok but after a smooth talking Tuk Tuk driver it seems we may have been fooled again. Luckily for us, this experience only cost us $30.

Following our excursion through the ancient temples of Siem Reap, our Tuk Tuk driver showed us the Floating Market on Tonle Sap Lake. As we are here for the full experience, we assumed a sunset boat ride to a floating market could be entertaining. $30 later, we had tickets and were in route for the floating market.

About 20 minutes into our ride, we heard a load burst come from the ride side of our Tuk Tuk. Our driver attempted to ignore it for a minute or two but once I had to mention that the rear tire was flat. Just our luck. To our surprise, right across from where we pulled over was a hut with a man that had some tire changing skills. 15 minutes later, we were back on the road. Pictures of the road, our driver and the tire man.

Once we got over that hiccup, we proceeded 5 minutes down the road to the boats. Here we hopped aboard and had a whole boat to ourselves plus the nice guide, Sothea. Below are a few photos of the boats and the sights we saw on the ride the the floating "market". I must say, the views resemble that of a Windows 95 screensaver.

After witnessing a few pretty landscapes we headed to the "market" to watch the sunset. Here is where we began to question our decision. Not only was this place not a market (lost in translation when descriving village), they had no real food to serve either. We hadn't eaten since breakfast essentially and were saving for some delicious food at the market. On top of this, contrary to advertised, the sunset was to be watched on a docked barge rather than on the perfectly good boat.

The icing on the cake was that it was cloudy during the sunset so there was not even a good picture opportunity so we left early. On the other hand, we did get to see how the other half lives. This floating village was quite an eye opener. They had floating houses, police station, hospital, churches, even a basketball court! It was truly a one of a kind experience even if we did not get to do everything that was advertised. Below are some photos of the floating village: