Ton Le Sap – the 10,000 sq km lake in Cambodia

There’s just one days cycling in Cambodia, so today we are back on the bus, heading to Ton Le Sap, Cambodia’s lake that acts as the lungs for the Mekong Delta.  In the rainy season, the Mekong is too full of water and the water flows back into the lake and the lake expands up to 10,000 square kilometres.  In the dry season, the Mekong needs water, so the lake drains and shrinks to about 3,500 square kilometres.  Because Cambodia is so flat, the lake in on average only 12m deep.

We figured out today, that a bus with suspension was an optional extra that we didn’t purchase, and we bumped and banged our way along even the sealed roads.  Unfortunately, we also had a 5km unsealed stretch of road that we had to navigate twice getting to and from the lake.  We ended up well shaken and stirred.  Bev’s FitBit said that she had done 30,000 steps for the day, most of which would have simply been the bus shaking.

The first bone shaking bus ride took us to the newly created harbour where we would board out boat for the trip out to the lake.  The main focus of the trip is infact the boat trip out to the lake because that is where all the floating villages reside.

Boats docked in the harbour

The highlights of the trip were the clown in one of the other long boats showering us with water as we were leaving the harbour, and the visit to the orphan’s school.  The children are all Vietnamese, but because they have no papers, they are essentially stateless, so they are reliant on donations to provide them with food clothing and education.  Our group was able to present them with a box of clothes, which they seemed to be very appreciative of.

The boat owners’ children were two young boys, who were intent on giving everyone a shoulder massage.  I was the first patient, so I willingly accepted, fully aware that there would be a cost for this service - $1USD.  Some of the group, however didn’t want a massage, and so it got a bit tense, with the children being too pushy.  It will be interesting to see how this goes as we get more into Vietnam, as my recollection from 20 years ago was that the children could be very pushy.

Because the floating villages are in inland waterways, we got to up close with how the people live in these villages.  It’s a tough life, with the usual issues of fresh water, hygience etc. resulting in the average life span of people living on the lake being only 54 years, compared to 10 years more for people who live on the land.  Cambodia is still a very young country, with the average age being only 24.  This is largely due to Pol Pot’s regime

The return trip on the bus, was equally as bumpy, and luckily for us after lunch we got to do another bumpy trip on the bus.  We did have a couple of highlights – the first was the fruit market we stopped at just after lunch.  We got to buy some lychees, which I’d never seen not coming out of a tin, and some dragon fruit – really nice.

Ian, Helen and Diep buying fruit at the market

 The second highlight was the stop we made at the shooting range where a couple of the group got to shoot an M-16 rifle.  Helen decided she wanted to take a shot, just to see what it was like, and the look on her face after she had fired the gun was priceless.  It really was her OMG face.

Evan with his target

Loving rule 3

The day ended in the pool, which was great given the humidity here.

One of our group had ordered dinner for us, and even ordered matching tuk tuks to get us there and back.  The restaurant was superb, so Michael has gone to the top of the class for his organisational skills. 

We fly to Saigon tomorrow (Friday), where we do a days sightseeing before heading to Da Lat where our cycling begins in earnest.