Anlong Neak & Anlong Seima

There are many legends and traditions related to a dragon along the upper Mekong of Stung Treng province. Here in O’Svay commune, there is one special area that people called ‘Anlong Neak’, which means the ‘dragon’s lot area’ and is a very deep area in the Mekong. For generations, people living along the Mekong River in Ramsa area believe that there are a couple of dragons living here, due to some obscure evidence.

According to many other people living in O’Svay commune, they say the dragons are well known in the ‘Anlong Neak’ (mean Naga’s pool) area. Their grandparents used to tell them that the dragons lived along this area, especially in the deep part.

People said that during the dry season, ‘Anlong Neak’ used to have strong fishy smell which would last only a few days during the full moon. And then they would see pollution on top of water that was normally clear as a mirror. Soon after the smell, the people would see blood on the normally clean water flowing along the ‘Anlong Neak’ area. Our people believed that it was a 82 Eco-Tourism Guide’s Stung Treng dragon giving birth.

This miraculous natural event happened every year during the dry season on up to the present. Nowadays there is less smell and blood but it continues to happen. At that time of year, local people very seldom drive their boats across that area of the river, and the boat driver must take care to be respectful of the dragon spirit.

‘Anlong Neak’ area is located at lower part of O’Svay commune along the Ramsa area of the Mekong. As of yet. no scientist has researched this miraculous event.

The other strange event is at ‘Anlong Sema’and is well known to the people called ‘Phumi Anlong Vil’ who live on the upper part of the Mekong in O’Svay commune. The people living there are very respectful of the Anlong Sema area as the second miracle area after Anlong Neak.

‘Anlong Sema’ is a restricted area for fishing of the Ramsa area of Cambodia only. People say “we usually do not allow fishing in this area or even driving a boat across it. The miracle of the ‘Anglong Sema’ area is that the western side of the river always flows from north to south while the eastern half of river always flows from the south to north. Because of this unique behavior, we believe that this area is holy and we don’t allow boats to cross here. That is why we set up a reserve for both large and small fish to spawn here.”

‘Anlong Sema’ area is located at the upper part of Preah Rumkel commune along the Ramsa area of Mekong River just between Koki Thom island and the Anlong Vil (Veun Khav) village immigration police station along the Mekong River.