Kampong Phluk Floating Village Private Sunset Tour

Kampong Phluk, about an hour from Siem Reap. Three villages are sold out of Siem Reap and they are not equivalent, so it is worth knowing why this one.

Chong Kneas is the closest and the one with the documented problems: boats diverting to overpriced floating restaurants, pressured donations, and a crocodile farm. It has years of poor reviews to show for it. Kompong Khleang is the furthest, about an hour and a half each way, and it is a good village on a long afternoon. Kampong Phluk sits between them, it has the tall stilt houses and the mangrove, and it is the village where we have a standing relationship with the boat families.

The boats belong to the families who live in Kampong Phluk, one to a household and up to five for the better-off. Work is allocated on a queue, tour by tour: we hire a boat and its driver, take our ticket, and that boat goes to the back of the line until its turn comes round again.

We could buy a boat. We have not, because an outside-owned boat sits outside that rotation and takes a turn away from a household. On top of the boat hire, we hire Kiri, a guide who lives in the village, and the entrance tickets we pay on your behalf go into the community-run system that manages tourism on this stretch of the lake.

Sunset, and it is not close. In the afternoon the village is living its own day around you, and nobody can tell you in advance exactly what that will look like, which is the point. What never changes is the ending: open water, drinks out, and the light going down with nothing on any side of you.

We will run it in the morning on request, and there are four good reasons to ask: you have an evening flight and this is your last activity, you are here for the birdlife, you are a photographer who wants mist and the fleet heading out, or you are travelling in the hottest months when an afternoon adds heat and dust to an already dry visit.

Different, and worth seeing on its own terms rather than as a disappointment. When the water is high, boats moor where people's front steps end and the mangrove is reachable by paddled boat. Low water is another picture: the same houses standing clear on stilts you could park a car under, a longer approach over dry ground, dust, and usually no mangrove trip.

Neither version is the wrong one to see. What we will not do is let you book the high-water village and turn up to the low one. Tell us your dates when you enquire and we will tell you which Kampong Phluk you are booking.

Private. Your group has the boat to itself, with your own guide and your own driver, and no other guests join. The shared boats working this village run twenty seats and more, which is the reason nobody on one of them ever gets to ask a family before taking a photograph.

Everything on the day, and no. The price covers the Jeep and driver, your guide, a guide from the village, the private boat and its driver, the community entrance fee, the mangrove trip when the water allows it, and drinks and snacks out on the lake.

The community fee and the mangrove trip are normally charged separately, and at this village the mangrove is usually sold to you as an upgrade once you have already arrived. Both are in the price here. Nothing is collected at the landing and nothing is offered to you as an extra once you are on the water.

Yes, within a policy we will explain before you get on the boat. It is six lines and it exists because this is somebody's street.

• Ask first, every time. Your guide asks for you.
• Photograph children with their family, not on their own.
• No close-ups of children you have not met. Wide shots of village life are fine and are usually the better photograph anyway.
• No photographs of children who are undressed or partly undressed.
• Do not buy anything from a child, and do not hand out money, sweets or gifts.
• No photographs framed on poverty. A child in a washing basin is somebody's kitchen.

This is the reason a private boat matters more here than it does on a temple day. Rule one only works if there is a guide who can ask and a boat small enough to stop.

No, and please do not. Buying from a child is what keeps that child on the water tomorrow instead of at school, which is the position of ChildSafe and Friends-International, the Phnom Penh organisation that wrote the sector guidelines on this with UNICEF input.

The same goes for handing out money, sweets or pens. If you want to give something, talk to your guide rather than to a child.

No, and we would not recommend it. The Tonlé Sap is a working lake: thousands of households live directly on it, and everything from daily life goes into the water. We do not swim on this tour and neither do the families who live there. You stay dry, on a boat with a roof.

No. The lake is outside the Angkor Archaeological Park, so there is no pass to buy and nothing to add to the $95. That makes this the answer to the question most people arrive with, which is what to do on the day they are not in the temples. If you are doing the temples on another day, buy that pass online in advance at angkorenterprise.gov.kh rather than queueing at the gate.

It gets called a human zoo, and that is worth taking seriously rather than arguing with. The criticism describes drive-by tourism: a large boat going through at speed, nobody stopping, nobody speaking to anybody, cameras up the whole way.

What changes it is a boat small enough to stop, a guide who can introduce you, somebody from the village on board, and a rule that you ask before you photograph. Whether that is enough is your call. If it is not, we would rather you booked the countryside afternoon instead, and we will say so.

Light clothes that cover your shoulders, closed shoes, sunglasses, sunscreen and a hat. It is open water in the afternoon with very little shade beyond the boat roof. Bring insect repellent for the last hour, and a light layer for the run home after dark in an open Jeep.

Yes. Children aged 4 to 12 get 30% off, which brings it to $66.50, and under-4s go free. They ride in the Jeep as passengers and a child seat can be fitted on request. The boat has a roof and a floor and there is no swimming, so the main thing to plan for is the length of the afternoon rather than the water.

The tour runs. Rain here usually arrives in short heavy bursts rather than all afternoon, the boat has a roof and the Jeep has a canvas top. A wet sky over the lake is also better to photograph than a clear one. If the weather is severe enough that the boats are not going out, your guide will tell you before you leave the hotel and we will move you.

A weekday if you can. Weekends and Cambodian public holidays run busier, especially with domestic visitors out for their own day on the lake. It is not a problem, just livelier, and with a free choice of days we would take the weekday.

• 14+ days before: full refund
• Less than 14 days before: 50% refund
• Less than 5 days before, or no-show: no refund