Floating Village

For our last full day in Siem Reap, we visited Tonle Sap Lake, the largest fresh water lake in Southeast Asia. The Tonle Sap Lake connects with the Tonle Sap River, which connects to the Mekong River. When you are on the water, it is hard to believe that you are on a lake because it is so big. It feels more like an ocean. I was a bit alarmed when I first saw the boat. I was tempted to put the lifejacket on immediately, but decided to not to be a whiny girl about it.
When the boat first went out, we passed some houses built on sticks (not sure if I can call them stilts). Cambodia gets quite a bit of rain during the rainy season and the already large lake floods to about 5 times the level we saw it at. Houses that are 10 meters in the air now in the dry season, will be only 1-2 meters from the water level in the wet season. So there are many floating villages on the lake. This means that not only the houses float, but the schools (including the basketball court), churches, and pig pens. It is probably difficult to have a garden on the water, so there are boats filled with fruits and vegetables that come right up to your boat. For the thirsty tourist, there is a parent-child team that brings drinks to you by pulling along side the boat. The small child (about 5 or 6 years old) leaps onto the tourist boat walks through the aisle, then beacons the parent to pull up again and leaps back onto their little motor boat and speeds away looking for the next boatload of customers. As you can imagine, this is quite dangerous, though very entertaining. The picture of the boy in the blue T-shirt and white cap is one who jumped onto our boat.
Motorboats and canoes are not the only way to travel on the Tonle Sap. We saw many boys floating and paddling around in metal washbasins. It was the funniest thing to see these boys floating around the lake in a large bowl.
Pork seems like one of the common meats in Cambodia, so at the floating village, the piggies have their own floating pig pens. We also saw a cage filled with heaps of crocodiles or alligators (I can’t tell the difference).
Sanitation is an issue here with the place to bathe, wash clothes and dishes, and the toilet all being in very close proximity on the water. They were all so interesting to see. Such a different way of life!
This is getting to be a large post, so I will put the next part in a separate post. Oh and I want to give credit to Kate for many of these pictures. She got some really good ones, so I am happy I can share them with you all. Thanks!