Every year in May, the rising Mekong sweeps away Kampong Cham's bamboo bridge. And every year in January, around thirty residents rebuild it by hand, pole by pole, over nearly a kilometre. This temporary structure, sturdy enough for motorbikes and carts, sums up the spirit of the place: here, people work with the river instead of fighting it. River boats dock at the pier of this former colonial town, Cambodia's sixth largest city, whose streets fan out from the water with a slightly faded elegance. The province also owes its name to the Cham people, a Muslim community whose villages and mosques still dot the surrounding riverbanks.

The Koh Paen Bamboo Bridge

In the dry season, the crossing to Koh Paen Island is made across this woven bamboo structure, strung together with cables, which creaks underfoot but never gives way. On the other side, the island unfolds its sesame and tobacco fields, its stilt hamlets, and its children who greet every foreigner like an event. You get around by bike or on foot, between hedges of bamboo appropriately enough, with the feeling of having stepped out of the century. When the flood comes, a ferry takes over, and the bridge waits for its next rebirth, a tradition even the monsoon seems to respect.

Wat Nokor, the Nesting Temple

At the edge of town, Wat Nokor holds an architectural surprise: a recently built pagoda has literally been set up inside a sandstone and laterite sanctuary several centuries old. Monks move between the dark galleries of the old monument and the brightly painted rooms of the new one, with no one seeming to see any contradiction in it. Visitors wander from one era to the other in just a few steps, under the gaze of ancient Buddhas draped in saffron scarves by the faithful, and the worn stones still bear, in places, inscriptions that guides delight in deciphering.

The Hills of Legend

A few kilometres away, two twin hills face each other: Phnom Pros, the hill of the men, and Phnom Srei, the hill of the women. Legend tells of a building contest between the two sides, won by the women thanks to a now-famous trick: a fire lit before dawn tricked the men into thinking the sun was rising, and they laid down their tools too soon. Today, stairways lead up to the pagodas at the summits, where thieving monkeys keep an eye on the offerings and the view stretches across the plain to the horizon of rice fields and rubber plantations.

A Colonial-Era Stroll

Back in town, the riverfront lines up old French trading houses with faded shutters, a few cafés, and an old lighthouse that has stood watch facing the modern bridge since the days of steamships and river mail services. Late in the day, locals gather on the promenade for group exercise, sugarcane juice vendors press their stalks amid a clatter of ice, and the Mekong takes on copper tones while a monastery's bells ring somewhere behind the rooftops. This is the hour when the city shows itself at its best, doing nothing more than living. The cafés then serve iced coffee with condensed milk, a legacy of the era that locals have made their own, and you watch evening fall over the opposite bank.

As the lines are cast off, thoughts return to the bamboo footbridge, torn down by the waters, rebuilt by hand, year after year, for generations. Kampong Cham teaches something that resembles river wisdom, and passengers continuing their journey down the great river will look at every riverbank differently from now on.