In the Heart of Tonle Sap and The Floating Villages

On our last day, we drove out to take a boat ride at Tonle Sap (Freshwater Lake), to visit some of the floating villages that are built completely on the water. Before we got to the lake, we made a quick stop at the Hammock restaurant/bar to get some more delicious Khmer dishes for lunch. the reason why it called that because there are hammocks hanging all over it for guests to sit in and rest after the meal. We rested for about an hour, then we headed out to the lake. Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, and it expands to three times its size during the summer. The lake is a great resource of food and income for people living on it and around the area. When the water rises up, the plants around the area become food for the fishes and when it goes back down, those fishes will become trapped which are easy picks for the fishermen. It is also a popular attraction site for tourism with hundreds of tourists wanting to see the villages floating on water, and how the villagers live in these villages. We took a medium size boat out, as we were about half-way to the lake, a few smaller boats appeared. They offered to take us to the middle of the lake where the villages are at a price of 2 dollars per person since the water was too shallow and the boat we were on may get struck. Seeing a boat got struck, not even 5 minutes earlier, we agreed and we thought it would be a fun experience. As we arrived to villages, we actually saw restaurants, schools, even a church, all floating above the water, and we saw where they raised crocodiles and catfishes, so we found out where our crocodile meats come from. We went to the top of the floating restaurant, this was when we began to realize that big boats were coming into the villages, even boats that were bigger than ours. We knew we were tricked but we also realized that this was probably one of their ways to make some money to afford themselves till the raining season finally kick in in the country. We had a fun ride on the smaller boats too, with the wind blowing and the water flashing on our face. IMG_3187IMG_3185IMG_3194IMG_3169IMG_3201IMG_3202IMG_3176IMG_3194