Day 21: Sunday 8 November 2009 – Tonle Sap

Today involved a visit of the Floating Village on Tonle Sap, Cambodia’s Great Lake.  Tonle Sap Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia, swelling to an expansive 12,00 square kilometres.  During the dry season, half of the year, the Lake shrinks to as small as 2,500 square kilometres, draining into the Tonle Sap River which merges with the Mekong River in the south east, near Phnom Phen.   We motored over what would be dry, dusty roads during the dry season. 

More than 100 varieties of water birds, 200 species of fish, as well as crocodiles, snakes, turtles and other crawlies inhabit the Lake and its mangrove forests.  Apparently 60 – 80 kilogram catfish are common. 

The Lake is an important commercial resource, providing more than half of the fish consumed in Cambodia (and satisfying the enormous demand for Fish Amok in all the restaurants frequented by tourists).  The floating villages feature a variety of stilted houses, barges including; floating supermarkets, a school, a Catholic church, and basketball court, servicing a population of some 1,000 families who apparently happily exist in extremely close confines.   Today we saw them working together, beating tiny fish out of their nets with what looked like tennis rackets - family entertainment on a Sunday afternoon perhaps?  Meanwhile the more enterprising (and cute) ones, rowed or paddled up to our boat, sporting cobras around their necks and sending me into a mild state of panic!

Packed Simon off to his five-star hotel in Bangkok where I think he will sleep a little uneasily.   It was great to have him here and to be able share directly what this place is like and what I'm going through on a daily basis.  The blog is great but sometimes you need to see things with your own eyes and to feel the filth first hand, to really understand the complete poverty in this part of the world.