Lake Tonle Sap, villages on the water. Cambodia
In Siem Reap, in addition to Angkor, and of the city itself, there is another entertainment - a trip to the village on the water, or, in other words, the exploration of Tonle Sap Lake. Personally for our company it was one of the most anticipated "entertainment". Looking ahead, I’ll say that we didn’t like the tour right away. However, looking at the photos and remembering how it was there, I understand that the lake is still quite an interesting place!
Lake Tonle Sap is very unusual. The color of the water in it is gray-brown, in the dry season (from November to May) its depth does not exceed one meter, and in the rainy season the depth rises to nine meters, flooding everything around. It is not for nothing that all the villages in the area stand on high piles, or simply are houseboats.
You can get to the lake by rickshaw, but we drove our car to the boat station (if you can call it that) Phnom Krom and there, for $ 30 each, we got into a rented boat, in which there was no one except us.
And they swam...
There are two popular flooded villages on the lake. The first, closest to Siem Reap, is Chong Kneas. It is here that all dwellings are in the form of boats. There is a school, a church, and the only concrete building is a Buddhist temple. Most tourists are limited only to this village, but we are not like that!
As soon as they sailed out of the canal, the first floating houses and local residents began to appear.
The first village is famous for the picture of children swimming in metal basins. But, since our goal was a distant village, then, unfortunately, we did not see such entertainment.
The second, distant village is called Kampung Phluk, and here the houses are built directly on land, but on high wooden piles, as it is flooded during the rainy season. But we were not lucky, we were in the dry season, and did not see the most interesting.
The population here lives rather poorly, the main income comes from fishing, and in their free time they have fun as they can:
- drying shrimp
- or eating shells
Some houses are very poor, others are quite well-groomed and bright. Contrast. There is something in this. There is a school, a Buddhist temple. Lots of kids in school uniform.
And yet, near this village is a flooded forest (flooded forest), which should be just incredibly beautiful in the rainy season. Separately, for $ 5 per person, you can enjoy not only the beauty of a not very dense forest, but also extreme boats in which you have to sail.
The distance between the villages is overcome in two hours by water. You can swim in silence, broken only by the noise of an ancient motor, watch how the inhabitants of the lakeside fish on the shore, how children collect garbage, how birds catch fish from the nets placed in the water. Interesting place! Definitely!
