360 in 365 – Joachim voyage autour du monde

Pictures of around Battambang and no pictures from the Tonle Sap Lake

After Phnom Penh, I went to Battambang. It’s the real cambodian countryside, with temples all around… and it’s perfect.

Then after two days, I left Battambang to go to Siem Reap, where Angkor lies. I made this trip by boat, on the Tonle Sap, a big lake that regulates the water of the Mekong. In the rainy season, the lake fills up, and then when the droughts come, the lake empties itself in the Mekong, providing people with water all year round. This little thing allowed the Khmer civilisation to flourish, a bit like the Egyptians with the Nile.

Sadly, my travel on the water won’t be shown with pictures : I accidentally deleted my photos from that day. So I’ll try to show you this trip with words, and not with pictures…

The trip starts on a river that flows into the Lake. The river is large, the day is young and it’s not hot yet. We navigate between two walls of jungle, and wooden houses. You can see the start of the day for people on the river, fishermen and their nets, sarong-clad women are washing up, and kids put on their school clothes, the white shirt and blue dress, or pants.

Heat comes. The river grows larger. Vegetation is green and plenty. We navigate in a path cleared from the invading plants. And we arrive to a floating vllage. There, you have a boat before you have a motorbike in the rest of the country. A motorbike in this village wouldn’t be useful.

In the center of the village, there’s a big blue house, with two classrooms and a recreation area, enclosed for security. Here, the street is but a pond. This is a school, and it was donated by UNICEF, by people like my grandmother, who bought end of year wish cards from the children of the world to give to us with our presents.

And we leave the village. Trees and water-bushes, and a strange floating platform with a tall bamboo structure working like a crane or a lever to lift a big square fishing net. All operated by an old lady, sitting in the shade of the makeshift cabin at the other end of the barge. The river grows larger, it’s not a river anymore. You can see houses on wooden poles, built in the shade of a tree… and children playing in small boats as the captain of ours is trying to untangle algaes from his engine.

And then, the lake. The sun is high and the air is thick with humidity, our shadows are now the smallest they will be all day. I try not to fall asleep on the roof of our boat, but it’s hard. We’re going in the direction of a mountain, on the other side of the lake… it’s the only mountain on the horizon, and in its shade lays Siem Reap.

I would have prefered to show you the pictures, it would have been way better, and I wouldn’t have spent so much of my precious time writing it. But well, I only have them in my head (and on a film in my bag) so you’ll have to wait until next year.