Today we rode to Tonle Sap Lake, which is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, about 30 miles south of Siem Riep. There are many small fishing villages on the edge of the lake. The lake changes in size considerably during the rainy season, expanding to almost one and half times its size at the peak of the rainy season, and then receding during the dry season. So the villages on the edge of the lake are known as “floating villages” because the people who live in them live on small houses/huts that float on a bamboo barge or a small wooden boat. As the waters rise the houses and village buildings rise with them. The other option is the one we witnessed at the village of Kamchang Pluk, where the houses are all built very high up on stilts and as the waters rise the families move progressively further up until they are only living in the top section of the house in the months at the end of the rainy season. At this point we are only about 1 ½ months into the rainy season, so while the waters are rising, there is still a lot of dry land. We took a boat through the village “streets” which are largely waterways and then out into the lake. On the way back we stopped and walked through the main street of the village, which, in another two months or so will be completely submerged. The jungle area that borders the lake is already becoming flooded and it was amazing to look into what appears to be a forest and see all the water around the trees.
These villages are very poor fishing villages. The villagers fish and raise shrimp in the lake as their main source of income. They also have chickens, pigs and cows, which, believe it or not, share their quarters with them and move up as the waters rise and back down again when they recede. They sell the animals at market as another source of income. We saw one pig on his way to market as we were approaching our tour boat. The only substantial buildings in the village are the Buddhist Temple, built high up in a section that does not get submerged, and the village school is right next door. We saw many villagers tending their boats, and their shrimping traps and lots of children playing in the village streets and swimming in the lake. The lake water is so brown it looks like chocolate milk! It is the primary source of washing and cooking water for the village. We did see that they have a cistern for drinking water and each family gets a small ration of purified drinking water, but even with that, many villagers wind up drinking the lake water which causes disease due to the pollution. Our guide told us the life expectancy in these villages is about 57. You see very few “grandparents” in these villages because folks simply do not live to a ripe old age. Apparently tuberculosis is a big killer of the older generation. There are many children and the mothers are practically children themselves. Most of the village children get only an elementary school education because the secondary school is far away from the village and the children do not have transportation there, nor do they have the money for the required uniforms and shoes. The children are all barefoot and we noticed that the littlest ones are often naked. This is really subsistence existence. A lot of the villages along the lake are populated by Vietnamese, who came here during the war and have stayed. Kamchang Pluk is largely Cambodian.
After our visit to Kamchang Pluk we returned to Siem Riep and had lunch in a French Indochine restaurant. It was delicious Cambodian food with a French accent. Then we had a short rest break before departing for the Angkor complex again to visit the oldest temple ruins, Ta Prohm. The young people rode bikes to the temple while we oldsters rode the bus. It was a rather comical expedition, as our program guide was riding with the kids and his bicycle chain broke and he was struggling to keep up with the kids and finally had to give up and ride in the van that followed them to the temple. On they way they passed a group of monkeys who were most entertaining.
Ta Prohm is the oldest temple in the Angkor complex and in the need of most repair. An Indian architectural conservation group is working on the restoration of the temple. It was built during the 12th century, during a period when Cambodia was a Buddhist empire. Then the Hindus came into power and they came and ripped out all the Buddha statues ( and “ripping out” statues that are carved in stone all over a massive temple is a rather destructive enterprise!). The temple was abandoned for centuries and HUGE trees have grown all around it, dwarfing the temple structures in many places and doing significant damage to the structure. The temple is deep in the jungle and we could hear all manner of birds and insect life chirping and cawing and crowing and generally making noise as we walked around the temple ruins. This is the temple most known for having been the location at which the film “Tomb Raiders” was shot. It does rather have the look of a horror movie set!! After our exploration of Ta Prohm, we returned to the hotel for a rest before going back downtown for dinner. We had another delicious Cambodian meal. Sam joined some of the others in the group for another spin through the Night Market. I opted to return to the hotel for an earlier night.
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