Cambodia's Tonle Sap lake is South East Asia's biggest, and during the wet season it expands enormously as water backs up from the mighty Mekong near Phnom Penh, and covers a large proportion of central Cambodia. During the dry season the water drains out again and the lake shrinks to a fraction of the size. So the Tonle Sap river, which flows down to the Mekong, reverses its flow twice a year.
A lot of transport in Cambodia has traditionally been up and down the Tonle Sap river or across the Lake. If you want to go from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap or vice versa, you can do it by boat, but I gather it's slower, more crowded and less comfortable than the bus these days (the roads have been greatly improved of late). Lonely Planet still recommends the boat trip across the lake as a good way to travel between Siem Reap and Battambang.
I actually stuck with buses for all my Cambodia travel, and they all worked well. But I did visit the Lake on a day trip from Siem Reap, and got a feel for this Cambodian Waterworld. There's a floating village, called Chong Kneas, where they're all set up to show tourists around. It was towards the start of the dry season, and the lake was contracting, so the floating houses were in the process of being moved. They need to move them several times a year, many kilometres in fact, as the shoreline contracts and expands.
So you see all this, and you see the floating markets in operation, and the crocodile farm, and you even get to visit a Catholic church and private Catholic school-orphanage. First though, they take you to a grocery store and tell you you need to take a gift of some food, as the school depends totally on such donations. It's probably legit, but how can you tell at the time? A 50kg bag of flour for $50 is suggested, then when you prevaricate, it comes down and down, till we settle for a $12 box of instant noodles. Off we go again on our boat ride, the gift is given, I'm introduced to the teacher and the class.
It turns out they're absorbed in a TV show though. It is Sunday, after all. No lessons today. No need for me to provide an English lesson. After a quick "Hello", they don't really want to know me!
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