So we are in the village, whose dirt road extends into the lake until it disappears...
So we were getting ready to take a boat for 2 hours to visit a floating village.
There are many floating villages, people live independently in their small bamboo houses with straw or sheet metal roofs. This is one of the places where you can be closest to Cambodian life and in contact with their everyday reality. Here, all life revolves around water.
The lake is very rich in fish, making many fishermen happy. Let us remember that Tonlé Sap Lake is the largest lake in South East Asia and is therefore an important food supply center in the region.
Note that many of these floating villages are often inhabited by Vietnamese people. Moreover, they will surely accost you to sell fruit, especially while you are walking on the lake.
Images far removed from Western life.
Rudimentary dwelling on stilts.
The village is very long because it is bordered on both sides by the lake.
A smile, proud of his little one!
Difficult quality of life if we judge the background...
There are a lot of children here.
Pretty house.
Flowers, universal decoration.
Always smiling, let's take an example.
So what was there to look at?
No doubt we are in Cambodia!
Children love to play in the water.
This one prefers to clean the cow's tail...
And these are training in fishing.
It is 16pm, time to take our boat, the tour lasts 2 hours, we want to return in time to watch the sunset. We give our tickets provided at the post where Sokna paid us the 40 dollars, someone asks us if it is possible to buy tickets here directly… We cannot answer him because we do not see any point of sale in the area… At the end of the village, the path is no longer raised, the houses are floating in order to anticipate the very significant variations in the level of the lake depending on the time of year, due to the monsoon.
The villages have their town hall, a school, play areas for children, restaurants (I think more for tourists) we even saw a church, so they are generally very complete.
Just a few meters further, once in the boat, 2 Vietnamese women come alongside our boat with their small motorboat, we can tell that it's the daily grind given their way of doing things, fast, just enough time to offer drinks and fruit and then leave again immediately.
When we stopped in the middle of the lake before entering the village, other boats with children once again came to dock with us. I think that the stop was partly (or only) for the inhabitants to come and sell their products to tourists.
This is the start
Happy as a fish in water!
Floating house at the end of the village, the dirt road is just behind.
A floating “store”. The hat is reminiscent of those of the Vietnamese and for good reason, there is a whole community of Vietnamese living on the lake…
A playground.
The path begins to disappear under the waves.
This is the end of this village.
Hey dubber!
Some houses are set apart.
What was I saying…
Our guide claims it's a "temple", we are skeptical...
The lake is very lively, you come across many people there.
A perilous exercise!
Jitima, always smiling, not like our guide…
Along the water.
Lost in the middle of the water, I am quite surprised to see a whole series of TV antennas!
The water seems shallow.
Explanation of Tonle Sap Lake:
The surface area of the lake during the dry season, nearly 2 km² for a depth of about one meter, is almost multiplied by six when the monsoon rains arrive. Indeed, the Mekong is then in flood (due to the monsoon and the melting of the Himalayan ice) and the river which connects it to the lake reverses its course. It is then estimated that the surface area of the lake can reach 700 km² and its depth nine meters.
In volume terms, this represents a multiplication by a factor of 70. The reversal of the Tonlé Sap's flow acts as a safety valve which restricts the risk of flooding downstream.
When the lake floods, it invades the surrounding forests and fields. The Tonle Sap ecosystem is therefore known as a flooded forest ecosystem. The seasonal flooding creates an ideal environment for fish to reproduce, so much so that some 200 species have been recorded there. A real blessing for the three million Cambodians living in the region.
The Tonle Sap is indeed one of the most productive freshwater fishing areas in the world, providing more than 75% of the country's annual freshwater fishing volume and 60% of the protein intake of the Cambodian population.
At the end of the rainy season, the river returns to its normal course and the fish are carried downstream. The lake and its fish also provide refuge for around fifteen species of large birds in danger of extinction.
The receding waters leave rich nutrient deposits of sediment in the area, making it suitable for agriculture for the rest of the year.
Daily life of a floating village.
We arrive at “the break”.
Um, what avenue is that?
With a smile when she arrives, but since I didn't buy anything... she left with a face...
While taking a break, we notice crocodile farms, our guide explains to us that it is free to go there and that we can stop there, to our great surprise! We are not going to refuse and the boat takes us to a large barge which also serves as a souvenir shop, a restaurant, some live fish and dead specimens are exhibited.
A pond with fish that seem voracious is in the middle, as soon as we throw food at them, they wiggle in all directions! Crocodiles are also there, we ask the logical question, namely are there any free in the lake, quite surprisingly, we are told no, where do they come from then… Or they have captured them all…
Better not fall into the pit!
There are vendors everywhere, and here again there are children.
Let's eat
A kid in a basin.
Nice little house!
It’s a rather unusual “choice” of life.
Back home.
We are halfway there, it has been an hour, the setting sun is starting to give a beautiful colour to the sky and the landscape around us. We return to our starting point. It was the full moon, visible while it was still daylight, with the evening light, it allowed me to take some nice pictures.
It's rush hour!
One example of the many attempts at "artistic" photos with the moon in the background.
My favorite !
Peaceful little nap in the hammock…
I love this mix of colors in orange tones.
No doubt, it's time!
A woman was washing herself.
It’s a festival of color, I know I’m repeating myself…
Unloading a boat containing bags of rice (well that's a guess)
The sunset.
Boat “parking”.
The toilet too. I don't do it on purpose!
Festival of colors, I can never say it enough!
Twilight.
With a wide angle it would be better…
The day is ending.
Here we go, sailor! We come back after 1h30 of visits, the guide makes his speech on arrival, I can give a tip if I am satisfied. Jitima refuses that I give him something, the one here having been relatively unfriendly, doing the bare minimum, he lacked conviction…
Our driver Sokna having waited for us during our visit, he was waiting for us on arrival, ready to leave, very helpful at least, we were lucky to come across him on the first day.
Time to take a few more photos and we return to Siem Reap, he's getting hungry!
composition.
Fly me to the moon.
Night falls quickly.
Back in Siem Reap 20 minutes later, he was a bit faster for once!
I stop the Tuk Tuk and run in front of these houses to take this photo, when I see a setting that I like I want to photograph it.
They stop us at our request a little further, next to the old market and close to our usual restaurant where we plan to eat for the 4th time. We sincerely and warmly thank Sokna, after asking him for his email address and giving him a generous tip. We get our bearings in the old market with a view to buying souvenirs, especially t-shirts as far as I'm concerned. After eating, we take a nice walk along the canal where we went the first day, we cross and make a loop in order to return to our hotel, the weather is good, it's a very pleasant moment even if tomorrow we have to leave again, but the holidays are not over yet!
In the Old Market.
Siem Reap by night (I had to bring that one out)
Let's not forget that the day after tomorrow was Christmas!
Stylish shrub.
A Naga serves as a ramp on both sides of the bridge.
A short aside on the legend of the Nâga:
Le nâga (serpent in Sanskrit) is a "fabulous" animal of Hinduism, with a snake body and often represented with several heads (generally 5, 7 or 9), often chimerical and frightening: cobra hood, dog's mouth, dragon, bulging eyes and sometimes human.
In the legends of India and all of Southeast Asia, the nagas are inhabitants of the underworld where they jealously guard the treasures of the earth. Their natural enemy is the mythical vulture called Garuda, but nagas and Garuda are in fact only two incarnations of Vishnu, the two aspects of the divine substance, in whom they are reconciled.
The naga is a guardian and protector, a mediator between heaven and earth, and an intercessor between this world and the beyond, sometimes associated with the rainbow (Buddha descends from heaven on a staircase which is a rainbow, the ramps of which are two nagas). At Angkor (Angkor-Thom, Prah Khan, Banteai Chmar), causeways with balustrades in the shape of a naga would symbolize this rainbow, with Indra at their end (god of lightning and rain).
In Khmer iconography, the naga with an odd number of heads is male, while females have an even number.
On some lintels of Angkor Wat, which could symbolize the gate of heaven, are depicted Indra and the Makara spitting out two nagas. It is also to the naga that we owe the fertility of the soil and the fecundity of women.
In Thai Buddhist tradition, nâgas are water spirits, guardians of immense and mysterious treasures. They are most often represented in the form of giant snakes, sometimes with 5 or 7 heads. Thais still believe today that nâgas are found living in the depths of the Mekong River.
The nâgas are very sensitive to pollution and are capable of causing epidemics, among other things, if their habitat is polluted. On the other hand, if they are happy, they rain down all sorts of blessings on the regions that shelter them.
Other decorations.
Reflection.
Arriving at the crossroads near our hotel we hear music, curious by nature, I approach and start to observe people having a party opposite, on the other side of the canal. We sit and watch them, enjoying this charming evening in the open air.
The Cambodian party
