Ton Le Sap Lake

Tuesday Evening, December 5

This morning we drove out to the largest freshwater lake in Asia…Ton Le Sap Lake…about 15km south of Siem Reap. The edges and depth of this lake vary greatly throughout the year as it rises and falls with the monsoon seasons. The lake area can vary up to 5 times from dry to wet seasons. Therefore the folks who live there have houses that either are built on stilts or are floating. It has 10% of the country’s population living on it and its commercial fish industry is important to most of South East Asia. Today the lake level was down about 2 meters from its maximum a couple of months ago in late October.

This is typical of the floating houses and the boats used to navigate around:

Sometimes the kid has to come with you:
But don't let children...or the dog wander away or they may not come back:

These crocodiles inhabit this lake...these were at a fish farm exhibit.


Apparently about half the people on the lake are Vietnamese and half Cambodian. The Vietnamese came here after their Army invaded and rescued Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge who killed over a million Cambodians:



All in a days work on the lake:

This afternoon we went back to the Angkor ruins and visited the “jungle temple” (Ta Prohm), so called because it has been left in the condition it was found 150 years ago by the French explorers. And then to Bayon, with it’s inscrutable smiling faces. This will follow in another entry.