Drove about 45 minutes outside Siem Reap to Tonle Sap. According to our guide, Samay, Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Asia and fourth largest in the world. (Fun fact – Lake Superior is the third largest freshwater lake!). The drive took us past some very rural and poor communities.
Our guides up to this point had talked in bits and pieces about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror but the long ride to Siam Reap gave Samay a chance to tell his story. He was fifteen when the Khmer Rouge seized power. His father was a teacher and was killed immediately – the Khmer Rouge quickly killed all educated and professional people. Samay and his mother and siblings were forced to leave their town, separated and sent off to work camps in the country. Samay worked 12-15 hrs per day planting and harvesting rice, was fed two meals of watered down rice daily and owned a plate, a cup, the clothes on his back and one additional shirt. Everyone in the camps feared the Khmer Rouge. If you did not work hard and do as you were told, you were sent ‘for learning’. These people never came back to the camp and eventually the other camp workers realized ‘going for learning’ meant being killed. If you got sick, your rations were cut because you did not work as hard; most people worked when sick in order to eat. Samay’s brother had malaria and was accused by Khmer nurses of faking illness. He was punished and deprived of food until he took his own life. Samay was direct – ‘The Khmer Rouge killed both my father and my brother.” It’s not hard to fathom why people ate insects and rats under these conditions. Samay lived like this for just under five years but his story has a happy twist. He met a girl in the camp and they shared food. One day the Khmer Rouge guards went missing. The camp laborers thought this might be a trick so went to work anyway. Same thing the next day until someone brought news that the Vietnamese had invaded Cambodia, Pol Pot had been defeated and the Khmer soldiers had fled. Samay returned to his village and two weeks later married the girl from the camp. Forty years later, they are still married with children and grandchildren living a good life. He was able to forgive his captors and heal as he rebuilt his life. So many people lost loved ones during Pol Pot’s genocide – people here don’t sweat the insignificant as they know what it’s like to suffer. Their kindness comes from knowing what it’s like to be treated cruelly.
We reached Tonle Sap very moved by Samay’s story. We boarded a boat that took us down a river into the lake to see the floating villages. It was the dry season and the river was quite low – we got stuck in the mud and needed to be towed by another boat to break free.
The river leading to Tonle Sap was debris strewn; we saw lots of men fishing and some shanties along the bank.
We could immediately see the floating villages once we entered the lake. Over 80,000 people live in floating ‘houses’ on Tonle Sap. We passed many homes, a Buddhist temple, Christian church, grocery stores, a school and even a police station.
Most of the floating villagers come from Vietnam to fish – but so many people living on the lake have polluted the water and as a result, the fish population has decreased. The Cambodian government is attempting to regulate these villages but people can easily move from place to place on the lake.
The lake is quite shallow during the dry session and appears muddy. We boated for an hour then headed back up the river, and back to Siem Reap.