Floating Village

We had a quiet morning before catching a tuk-tuk into town to visit Mrs Pisey’s fabric stall in the market for silk. Lunch was at Khmer Kitchen.
Our final tour of the holiday was a visit to a floating village on the lake south of Siem Reap. All of the boats run truck engines without silencers, they were very loud! The lake is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia and is fed by rivers which flow from the Himalayas through China, Laos, Cambodia and finally to the sea via the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. However, China has recently built a dam in Laos which has significantly decreased the water flow and the migration of fish. The lake is currently only 1m deep as it’s approaching dry season, but it swells with the rains which start in June and the lake is then 10m deep and four times the size! The floating houses will soon move further into the lake as it dries up more. They have everything floating including a school and Catholic Church. There are a total of 170 of these villages in the lake. We stopped at a floating restaurant which was also breeding crocodiles for meat and leather and frogs for we know not what!
The gang plank to and from the boat was really steep so Chris had to walk backwards up it to save his Achilles.
On the way to the airport we stopped off at a local market to see the fish (some were still alive) vegetables and red ants for sale!
Thanks Vietnam and Cambodia, it’s been a blast.Read more