In Bangladesh one kind of Gipsy people (in bangla, Bede) use this boat as a home

http://www.southasiabiz.com/2007/02/bangladesh_beautiful_panshi_bo.html

Bangladesh is a country of rivers and even in this modern age, boat is the main vehicle in many parts of the country- especially in the rural areas. The good thing is that Bangladesh government is making bridges in all the corners of the country. So, people can move faster from one part of the country to another. Thus, boats are losing their importance gradually. Animesh Chandra Bain has posted in his blog 2 nice pictures of a special kind of boat called Panshi. I am posting one image here and you can visit the link to see the other picture of this beautiful boat. About this boat, Animesh wrote:
In the picture, here is a different kind of boat. It’s called Panshi boat. Some people made it for their hobby. But in Bangladesh this kinds of Panshi boat are used for nomadic life.
In Bangladesh one kind of Gipsy people (in bangla, Bede) use this boat as a home. They move from one place to another around the year also their full life.
Its color and design as so much charming that anybody will be impressed easily.

Panshi boat is a part of Bangladeshi culture. In fact, boat race was very popular even when I was a child. That time, we saw many boat races around Dhaka city and in neighboring towns. Weekly Holiday reported:

Boat racing was traditionally a common phenomenon in every part of the country. But gradually the game lost its glory confining it only to some selected places across the country, which includes rivers in Kishoreganj and the Buriganga. Boat racing in Sirajganj was not an exception as it stopped being held in the early 1980s. But State Minister for Power Iqbal Hassan Mahmood took an initiative to resume the popular boat race in the river Jamuna, under the sponsorship of the Hossaf Group.

As part of the initiative the second annual competition was held on September 26 at the Hard Point built for protecting Sirajganj town from erosion.

I would love to see boat races becoming popular again but I am not so optimistic. Unfortunately, urban people are not that interested about boat races. I wish that some dedicated organizers will come forward and save this sport.
In the end, I would also love to see a revival of interest about Panshi boat. It is not extinct yet but it is not that famous like past too.