Written by Jonathan Smylie
South of Siem Reap there runs a long, straight dirt road on top of a levee that leads to the edge of Lake Tonle Sap and the floating village. In the dry season this road is 15 kilometers long and the lake at its southern end is two or three meters deep. At the height of the rainy season, in January, the lake is ten meters higher and the road three kilometers shorter.
On either side of this elevated road stand shacks built on stilts and beyond them stretch flat, wide open fields that in the dry season are planted with rice and in the rainy season covered with lake water. Some of these shacks are as small as the tree houses I built as a child. Their walls and roofs are made of reed or wood or corrugated metal or bamboo. They stand on stilts 10 to 15 feet high, depending on the distance between the road (on top of the levee) and the fields below. Under these shacks the people string hammocks where they can doze in the shade.
The road ends in a giant parking lot of slick mud, crowded with tour buses, shacks, food stands and tourist boats. We board one and take a thirty minute ride down the river to the lake. On both sides of this cruse is the Floating Village and it is just that—a complete town on houseboats. These houseboats are either wood rafts built over actual boats with a structure on top or simply a shack on a tied together bushel of bamboo. The boat and raft combination leaves the house high above the water. The structures that stand only on bamboo rafts sit low and look like they could sink at any time. Many of these floating homes have TV antennas and use car batteries to power their sets. There is no other electrical source out here, but there is a place where the villagers take their batteries when they need recharging.
In addition to the house boats, there is a full length basketball court on a steel pontoon raft, three or four schools operated out of houseboats, a Catholic church and a number of restaurants. All along the river’s path are fish farms, giant underwater cages, some as large as a 40-foot long cargo containers.
On maps the place’s official name is Vietnamese Floating Village, why Vietnamese, I don’t know. The floating village moves locations depending on the season.
At the mouth of the river, the lake spreads out wide. With a storm approaching, the water was choppy and we decided to pull over to a large floating restaurant and fish camp. I walked over planks that surrounded the open top of a fish cage and caught a glimpse of the shark like catfish they harvest. In another cage, this one all metal, the top three feet of which was above water, I saw 20 or more alligators, ready to be shipped to Thailand or Vietnam for their skins.
Everywhere kids were begging and tourists were taking pictures. The contrast was surreal. Like with many of the street musicians I saw in front of the wats, people with missing limbs are here as well. One young boy, missing his left arm, kept paddling back and forth in front of the floating restaurant in a small round boat that looked like a dog’s wash bucket. Other children swam in the muddy water. Each tourist boat that docked at this turnaround point was immediately surrounded by small wooden boats from which young mothers crouched on their hams in the bow of their boats, their babies swaddled against them, held up a bushel of bananas hoping for a sale. Everywhere I turned people were trying to sell something, anything that might bring in some money.
When we return to the mainland a woman presented me with a round table plate with my picture on it. I was surprised but did not purchase.
South of Siem Reap there runs a long, straight dirt road on top of a levee that leads to the edge of Lake Tonle Sap and the floating village. In the dry season this road is 15 kilometers long and the lake at its southern end is two or three meters deep. At the height of the rainy season, in January, the lake is ten meters higher and the road three kilometers shorter.
On either side of this elevated road stand shacks built on stilts and beyond them stretch flat, wide open fields that in the dry season are planted with rice and in the rainy season covered with lake water. Some of these shacks are as small as the tree houses I built as a child. Their walls and roofs are made of reed or wood or corrugated metal or bamboo. They stand on stilts 10 to 15 feet high, depending on the distance between the road (on top of the levee) and the fields below. Under these shacks the people string hammocks where they can doze in the shade.
The road ends in a giant parking lot of slick mud, crowded with tour buses, shacks, food stands and tourist boats. We board one and take a thirty minute ride down the river to the lake. On both sides of this cruse is the Floating Village and it is just that—a complete town on houseboats. These houseboats are either wood rafts built over actual boats with a structure on top or simply a shack on a tied together bushel of bamboo. The boat and raft combination leaves the house high above the water. The structures that stand only on bamboo rafts sit low and look like they could sink at any time. Many of these floating homes have TV antennas and use car batteries to power their sets. There is no other electrical source out here, but there is a place where the villagers take their batteries when they need recharging.
In addition to the house boats, there is a full length basketball court on a steel pontoon raft, three or four schools operated out of houseboats, a Catholic church and a number of restaurants. All along the river’s path are fish farms, giant underwater cages, some as large as a 40-foot long cargo containers.
On maps the place’s official name is Vietnamese Floating Village, why Vietnamese, I don’t know. The floating village moves locations depending on the season.
At the mouth of the river, the lake spreads out wide. With a storm approaching, the water was choppy and we decided to pull over to a large floating restaurant and fish camp. I walked over planks that surrounded the open top of a fish cage and caught a glimpse of the shark like catfish they harvest. In another cage, this one all metal, the top three feet of which was above water, I saw 20 or more alligators, ready to be shipped to Thailand or Vietnam for their skins.
Everywhere kids were begging and tourists were taking pictures. The contrast was surreal. Like with many of the street musicians I saw in front of the wats, people with missing limbs are here as well. One young boy, missing his left arm, kept paddling back and forth in front of the floating restaurant in a small round boat that looked like a dog’s wash bucket. Other children swam in the muddy water. Each tourist boat that docked at this turnaround point was immediately surrounded by small wooden boats from which young mothers crouched on their hams in the bow of their boats, their babies swaddled against them, held up a bushel of bananas hoping for a sale. Everywhere I turned people were trying to sell something, anything that might bring in some money.
When we return to the mainland a woman presented me with a round table plate with my picture on it. I was surprised but did not purchase.
No comments:
Post a Comment