Kampong Cham

Set on the banks of the Mekong River and within easy reach of Phnom Penh and Vietnam, Kompong Cham is an important trade and transportation hub. The town itself is quaint and charming with a bustling riverside promenade and peeling colonial buildings, though modern concrete and glass buildings are beginning to encroach. Over two million people live in Kompong Cham province, most working as rubber tappers or as farmers. Kompong Cham’s flat land and red soil is ideal for rubber plantations and fruit orchards.

Kampong Cham’s bamboo bridge is one of the province’s most popular attractions and a sustainable feat of engineering. With every dry season, the waters of the Mekong River separating Kampong Cham town from the roughly 1,000 families on Koh Paen recede, becoming too shallow for a ferry. Each year, for decades, the island’s residents have employed a unique solution: building a seasonal, kilometre-long bamboo bridge until the rains swell the river, then tearing it down again.