We exited the Siem Reap River and sailed into the huge lake known as the Tonlé Sap. We are on our tour of the Chong Kneas Floating Village and we were observing how the people go about their daily lives on the floating village.
The lake is still small right now but when it grows to full size, it can be almost five times as large as this one. During times when the lake is full, the floating villages needs to moved further nearer the shore, since the borders of the lake have also moved further away from them. Besides, it will not be safe if the waters are much deeper than they are now.
At one point in our trip another boat with two young ladies started getting near our boat. In fact, a little too near for comfort. It almost feels like they were about to ram us sideways. They really did, after a sudden jarring, they stabilized our two crafts and started selling drinks! Wow, talk about floating everything. Unfortunately for them, we didn’t buy anything from them and they left but had to give a token drink for our boatman for letting them do what they just did.
It was interesting to see that there is almost a complete community here. Only difference is that everything is floating. It has a school, a police station and even a place which sells mobile phones! As to be expected given the situation, the houses are mostly made of wood. Interestingly almost all of the houses here have television antennas. Seems like living on the water won’t stop them from getting their dose of TV. There was also a floating Catholic Church. In fact, there are only two Catholic Churches in Siem Reap. One is in Siem Reap itself and the other on is on the lake! On hindsight, I would have loved to visit the church there but we didn’t have the time.
Further from the shore are more clusters of floating houses. Our boatman’s kid tells us in halting English that those belong to Vietnamese people. You can tell that they are Vietnamese from their unmistakable conical hats. I found it surprising to know that there were also Vietnamese living in these conditions, since Vietnam seems to be a more prosperous country than Cambodia.
Interestingly, I noticed that the people here would sit in front of the boat rather than behind it. I would expect people do sit towards the rear of the boat most of the time. They can sit in front probably because the lake is calm enough for them to sit in front safely.
Along somewhere in the middle was a cheesy Freshwater Fish Exhibition. Sounded too much like a tourist trap. There was another crocodile farm near it. And true enough there were crocodiles on display, you see tourist just throwing food at the crocodiles and see the feeding frenzy that ensues. It was kind of gruesome but at the same time fascinating. I never really found out where they got those crocodiles. I assume that the Tonlé Sap would also be teeming with them and any crocodiles that get caught are sent here.
There was another pen with huge catfish. And similar to the crocodile pen, there tourists can throw food at them. Interestingly enough the catfish also go on a feeding frenzy. With the murky water splashing so hard it can splash on my camera if I wasn’t careful. The catfish are also proof of the huge amount of nutrients on the Tonlé Sap, giving rise to fish of huge proportions.
This floating platform seems to be a magnet for beggars as they probably know that only tourists come here. They would come in their boats and park beside the floating platform and beg. It was truly a pitiful scene. All of them would start to say the what seems to be the only English they knew: “Wan dola (One dollar)”. But it seems that there is a law forbidding them from directly going on the platform itself, since they just stayed on their boats. Despite the huge numbers of tourists going to Cambodia, the tourist money seems to be slow in trickling down to the poor.
The visit to the Chong Kneas Floating Village was a surprisingly interesting one. It served as an eye opener for me, to actually see how the people cope with living on the lake. It also opened me to the terrible living conditions these people have to bear. Hopefully, the tourist trade which they are desperately relying on can help them lift themselves up from this quagmire. You can also check your local charities and see how your help can change the lives of the poor of Cambodia.
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