Sticky keyboard, apologizing in advanced.
Kara and I spent the day on a boat tour of Tonle Sap lake. Its the biggest lake in SE Asia and is quite amazing. it varies per season, from 2m deep and 2500km^2 of area to 12m deep and 12,000km^2 of area! we lucked out, we were the only ones on the boat in our tour, and our guide spoke very good English and wanted to just share everything with us! here is what we did :)
We got picked up in a nice AC Car. even at 8am, the eventual 92 degree weather was in the mid 80s. We drove through the local streets of town and our guide was telling us about the basic jobs in Cambodia, farmer, fisher, and seller. the sellers, business man, either are educated and are "rich men" or they set up a small convenient store-like shop out of the downstairs and sell snacks and gas. the people i learned liked to buy gas from these people as the gas pumps charge a government tax. We got to see the rich and poor men house, as he differentiated. Just as an example, the rich man would own a color TV (not big screen, LCD, or multiple channels...) and the poor man couldn't afford one. They were all stilt houses. The rich ones were nicely painted, made out of nice wood and some had stucco looking coverings. the poor houses were smaller stilts made out of wood and the walls/roof was dried palm leaves. The stilts were for many things besides just to keep the house safe from the highly fluctuating river, such as protecting from dangerous snakes and insects and a place to keep the cows and dogs and chickens, which most have. The right side of the road was the rich side, as they backed up to a rice paddy and were allowed to own land. The poor left side backed up to the river, which wasn't allowed to be owned as it was government property.
We reached the end of a long road at a ''mountain' which was just a tall hill with a temple on top. It was the ONLY high ground around and was useful for helping lost fisherman get back to the port. This is a lake that looks like the great lakes, like an ocean. There are a number of villages inside and out and i will try and explain the best I can. a long time ago, there were two types of villages, the stilt ones and the floating houses. The floating houses are actually movable and not attached to the lake by any means. Education became harder for both villages, as high schools and even secondary schools were only being built in the city, so their children had no transportation and possibly not enough money even to attend the city schools. The villages then got left in the dust and were very poor. The floating villages try to adapt, but building some stilt houses along a road build by the pier to the lake, which was owned by a Korean company to promote tourism on the lake. They also built permanent floating houses and schools, meaning they rise with the water but are anchored to the ground. So now, there are floating villagers that part of the year live on the lake, part of the year live in these new houses. There is still a purely stilt village we visited, as well as one other village that has stilt houses but takes them apart and moves on dry land during the year. and then re-builds back when they are done!
When I saw floating village, i don't mean like just houses live we've seen in Indonesia. These are legit 'gas stations", food stores, religious buildings, restaurants, etc everything is floating. So we are in mega dry season right now, and the lake is at its lowest, and is this ugly clay color of mud since its only a few feet deep. We can see the whole mangrove forest of trees towering 10s of feet into the air. During the rainy season, only the tip tops of these trees are visible, how neat! We sent to each village and saw how each season gave a different way to catch fish, including some acre-long complicated contraptions that look like mazes... The stilt village was all dried up, so we walked through it. The children had just got out of school, as they only went to school half a day (and had to go to the city past primary school). There were all sorts of animals and naked babies running around again. I learned all the animals but the pigs were allowed into the houses during the flooded season, and the pigs had a communal floating pen. There was one place that was high enough to be always not flooded, the town monastery. they had local monks who lived off the towns donations and we got to see the small kitchen where the old ladies cooked for them. They only eat breakfast and lunch, and cannot be alone talking with a lady or touch one ever. They had lots of stupas and pagodas being built, and our guide told us that bodies were cremated in there, as they don't bury their dead like many others do.
We got to see the small primary school, which had gotten recent money from NUS (college in Singapore)'s angel fund. It had wide access to the towns water supply that was put up about 40 feet in the air to keep from contamination from the flooded seasons. Each house had pipe access to the water, and there was a small well by the monastery that had a sign that it was donated form a family from PA. Each house also had battery-operated electricity that they had to charge daily. Somehow. There was drying peanuts and shrimp on the sidewalk. I learned the dried shrimp goes for 3 times as much money per kilo than fresh shrimp here. Makes sense, as in Singapore they literally sprinkle it on EVERYTHING like it was salt or Parmesan cheese or something....
We went back to the floating village to see a restaurant where they kept some animals for attraction. They have small crocodiles at this lake, and they are a great catch/breed for people as they are very expensive to sell to surrounding countries. They also farm catfish here to make money during the low seasons. We learned that there can be over 400,000 tons of fish caught each year here, and as well as 5 million snakes (also caught to sell to feed the crocs and eaten, including pythons). There were small boys waiting in little boats for us, and when we approached the floating restaurants, tried to come in the boat to let us hold their pythons. These little 6 years olds were relentless. There was already a 3 year old (I swear to god he was 3) who jumped into our moving boat from his fathers moving canoe with a huge bucket of beer to try and sell us.... Anyway, we got to see there are over 400 kinds of fish here and they sell rice "wine"(liquor) they soak in scorpions and snakes to make more potent.....
Unfortunately, Alma made it to the airport just on time and forgot her passport and won't be joining us :(
the market here is amazing. Bought presents, so can't tell you specifics :) BUT there are amazing real gemstone jewelry and silk and homemade soaps and everything SOOO cheap here! Misquitos are out really bad tonight though :/ The food here is great and very cheap. The alcoholic beverages are about 25cents a beer, we had 8 margaritas for $5 tonight with dinner. Its ridiculous. Can't complain. But must get sleep, got a 5am sunrise tour of Angkor in the morning :)
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