TONLE SAP, CAMBODIA

TONLE SAP,CAMBODIA
After a three day stay at Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia (now known as Kampuchea) we decided to go to Siem Reap and the Angkor Vat.
Three modes of transport were available for the trip.
BY ROAD:
Buses are excellent with toilet facilities and a short stop on the way.It takes about 6 to 7 hours. Very Cheap about 6$ per head. Taxis also run but are expensive and not very comfortable. Full taxi cost about 45$ and will carry four persons and will take about 4 to 5 hours. Negotiation is necessary. The more daring hire motorcycles for the trip. Time is at your disposal.
BY BOAT:
Distance from Phnom Phen to Sisowath Quay (jetty) for taking a ferry is about 10 kms. For most of the year (July - March) daily ferries ply the Tonle Sap River and Lake between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. The end of the trip is marked by a hill, Phnom Krom, near the ferry dock at Chong Khneas 12 km south of Siem Reap. Costs about 25$ per head. The distance of 250 kms is covered in about 6 hours. Reasonably comfortable.
BY AIR:
Takes less than an hour. Costs about 100$. If you are short of time this is the best.We decide to take the boat. It left Phnom Phen at 07.30 and after a comfortable journey reached Chong Khneas jetty around 12.30hrs. We were picked up by ou guide and taken to our hotel about 12 kms away.
CHONG KHNEAS
Chong Khneas is the floating village at the edge of the lake closest and most accessible to Siem Reap. If you want a relatively quick and easy look at the Tonle Sap, boat tours of Chong Khneas are available, departing from the Chong Khneas boat docks all day long.
A two-hour boat trip through the floating village costs $6 and the boats may carry as many as 15 people. We engaged a separate boat for us. There are Vietnamese floating households, floating markets, clinics, schools, churches and even restaurants, a basket ball court, water treatment plant from where drinking water is supplied to the residents in boats. Chong Khneas, while interesting, is over crowded with tourists. The boat trip included two stops: one at a tourist floating 'fish and bird exhibition' with a souvenir/boutique and snack shop, and the other at the very highly recommended Gecko Environment Centre, which offers displays and information introducing the ecology and biodiversity of the lake area.
Cambodia's Great Lake, the Boeung Tonle Sap (Tonle Sap Lake,) is the most prominent feature on the map of Cambodia - a huge dumbbell-shaped body of water stretching across the northwest section of the country. In the wet season, the Tonle Sap Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia, swelling to an expansive 12,000 Sq.km. During the dry half of the year the Lake shrinks to as small as 2500 Sq.km, draining into the Tonle Sap River, which meanders southeast, eventually merging with the Mekong River at the 'chaktomuk' confluence of rivers opposite Phnom Penh. But during the wet season a unique hydrologic phenomenon causes the river to reverse direction, filling the lake instead of draining it. The reason for this phenomenon is the Mekong River, which becomes bloated with snow melt and runoff from the monsoon rains in the wet season. The swollen Mekong backs up into the Tonle Sap River at the point where the rivers meet at the 'Chaktomuk' confluence, forcing the waters of the Tonle Sap River back upriver into the lake. The inflow expands the surface area of lake more than fivefold, inundating the surrounding forested floodplain and supporting an extraordinarily rich and diverse eco-system. More than 100 varieties of water birds including several threatened and endangered species, over 200 species of fish, as well as crocodiles, turtles, macaques, otter and other wildlife inhabit the inundated mangrove forests. The Lake is also an important commercial resource, providing more than half of the fish consumed in Cambodia. In harmony with the specialized ecosystems, the human occupations at the edges of the lake is similarly distinctive - floating villages, towering stilted houses, huge fish traps, and an economy and way of life deeply intertwined with the lake, the fish, the wildlife and the cycles of rising and falling waters.
For three days each year the Tonle Sap in Phnom Penh is home to Cambodia’s most famous sporting event. The Water Festival is held to celebrate the reversal of the waters back into the Mekong and normally takes place in October or November. Millions of people travel from the provinces to Phnom Penh so they can participate and watch the boat racing. Teams from every province and many villages compete against each other in canoe style boats that they make themselves and decorate to represent their homeland. During the first two days the boats race in pairs but on the third day all the boats join together for a mass race. The festival and the boat racing is all done in order to pay respect to the river God who in turn will provide the country with a plentiful bounty of fish and rice for the rest of the year.
Another interesting feature of the area was the floating rice crop. Peasants plant floating rice in April and in May in the areas around the Tonle Sap (Great Lake), which floods and expands its banks in September or early October. Before the flooding occurs, the seed is spread on the ground without any preparation of the soil, and the floating rice is harvested nine months later, when the stems have grown to three or four meters in response to the peak of the flood (the floating rice has the property of adjusting its rate of growth to the rise of the flood waters so that its grain heads remain above water). It has a low yield, probably less than half that of most other rice types, but it can be grown inexpensively on land for which there is no other use. This practice seems to have stopped now.