Trip to the Great Lake, Tonle Sap

Well, my first attempt to add to the blog! During our first week here I was too fully occupied with my Teachers Across Borders duties. Teaching difficult concepts using a translator for almost every word is exhausting, especially when combined with temperature and humidity levels in the 90+ ranges.
Yesterday, the 19th, we woke up early for the second day in a row. We were in the van by 4:30 am and headed toward a boat landing on the edge of Tonle Sap Lake. The Tonle Sap is the largest lake in Southeast Asia and one of the most productive fisheries in the world. We hoped to see the sunrise peek out from the lake’s horizon, but instead we saw it peek up from a canal bank thanks to 30 minutes of futile attempts by our boat crew to get our boat restarted after it conked out mere seconds after starting out towards the lake. After another larger boat brought out a new battery (which was to no effect), we jumped ship and took our chances with our would-be rescuers.
You might think that our mechanical difficulties were due to the fact that Cambodians have to make do with very old equipment, or possibly because replacement parts are difficult to find and expensive, so that crews use string, random bits of wire, and parts of totally different machines to fix the engines. In our particular case, though, we have empirically tested the hypotheses that our own Andy Ludvik is to blame. While the other students and I had used tuk tuks (little wagons pulled by small motorcycles) qu…
(Note: As I write this, we were just interrupted in our van travels by a tire blow-out, requiring a brief interlude at the side of the road, watching and being watched by water buffalos and small children. Andy was, of course, aboard…)
…ite successfully, as soon as Andy joined in on a trip to a distant temple ruin, the tuk tuk broke down three times. The next trip, a tuk tuk ride to Phnom Sontuk (very interesting wat up on a hill, requiring some 803 steps to reach the top), became a caravan of four or five tuk tuks because of the combined interest of TAB teachers and students. Only one (the one carrying Andy) broke down, first needing gas, then refusing to re-start. “Many hands make light the work”, so we all got out and pushed the tuk tuk to get it started. Another adventure. Anyway, to finish up this side-bar, Andy was also on the ill-fated first boat mentioned above. He claims that the effect only extends to the first vehicle of whatever sort. The replacement vehicle, whether tuk tuk, boat, van, or pony cart, always works just fine.
Back to the lake… Our goal was Prek Toal, a bird sanctuary along the lakeshore (or sometimes not, keep reading). The most difficult part was threading our way through the many fishing nets strung across our path. The lake is very shallow in some areas, barely allowing the hull and propeller to clear the bottom. People in small canoes are out in pre-dawn hours to stretch weighted nets across lines of upright sticks; they stay nearby to tend the nets and, apparently, shout out instructions to larger boats that come too close to messing with their livelihood. By noon the fishing folk are all gone, along with their nets, and boats can proceed quite smoothly.
This time of year is not the best time to visit the sanctuary for bird watching, for that you need to come when the lake is really flooded and birds come in droves to nest in the tree tops that are tall enough to stick out above the flood. We missed the birds, but we had great views of villages built on platforms and floating on rafts of massive bamboo poles. They rise and fall with the season. Children, pigs, and crocodiles are all raised on these floating homesteads. Vegetables, meat, and house wares can be purchased from door-to-door (boat–to-boat?) salesmen in dugout canoes. Even the schools float! Some of the houses are built on cement or wooden pillars, permanently above the high-water mark. It’s a very long walk up every time you go home!
So, the reason for all this float-ability? Tonle Sap is probably one of the most variable water habitats in the world. In the drier season, from October to June, its water flows south and empties into the Mekong River via the Tonle Sap River. The water level in the lake decreases into an area of about 2,700 sq. km from a rainy season high of 16,000 sq. km. Sometime in June, as the rainy season progresses, the Mekong floods and pools where the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers meet, around Phnom Penh. At some point, the Tonle Sap River will actually reverse its flow, sending Mekong water north into the Tonle Sap Lake. At the peak of the flooding period, the “shoreline” may move 20 miles. One month, you own prime lakeshore property; six months later, you have to ride your little motorcycle 20 miles to take a dip in the quirky Tonle Sap. Part of the year, you are surrounded by pleasant meadows and forests, the other part of the year you are surrounded by water and tree-top islands. This odd, twice-yearly change of current has earned the lake the nickname of “The Heart of Cambodia”.
If you ever visit Cambodia, visit the floating villages near Siem Reap. Skip the over-touristed village of Chong Kneas that is very nearby (if it has display fish tanks and farm-raised crocodiles, pass it right by!) and visit the smaller villages of Kampong Kleang and others near Prek Toal. It’s a whole new world and worth the early wakeup call and the boat break-downs and the fishing net snafus. If you want to avoid the boat breakdowns altogether, don’t bring Andy with you.