Cambodia Day 3 - Lake Village

Have we really been in Cambodia for only two and a half days? Our last afternoon in Cambodia was packed full of more great stuff. In between Ta Prohm and the lake village we saw our last temple of the trip. This one is also made of sandstone, but is a bit special because it's red sandstone, and also because this one was lost in the jungle for about 800 years (some French guys stumbled upon it in the 60's). How do you lose a temple?

Along the way we stopped at a small village to get a closer glimpse of how the locals live. I kept wondering what the yellow stuff in the bottles was. No, it's not that, it turns out that it's gasoline.

I didn't ask if the cow was for sale:

The children found us immediately. There was one little boy who kept yelling "Hello one dollar! Hello one dollar!" even though he had nothing to sell. I'm pretty sure he thought that's how you say hello in English.

Last on the whirlwind tour of Seim Reap was Tonle Sap. Did you know that right smack in the middle of Cambodia is Asia's largest freshwater lake? And in the wet season the size of the lake swells from 2m deep and 2500 sq km to 10m deep and 13000 sq km? It's also called "The World's Largest Fish Bowl", with 75% of the fish in Cambodia coming from this lake.

Basically people just live on rafts on the lake, and there are little kids everywhere.

We were there at the end of the dry season, so the lake was fairly low and full of sediment (it's not pollution).

We were tooling along at a pretty good clip, when all of a sudden this kid just appeared out of nowhere on our boat. He was selling pop ("hello one dollar!"), which we bought, and then he took a flying leap off the boat and on to an awaiting (and swiftly moving) smaller boat to pounce on the next lot of tourists.

In case you're wondering, I did not spot a life jacket or a set of water wings the entire time. This little girl rowed up in what looked like a large trash can lid. Again, you're not supposed to give them money, but we were so far out in the middle of the lake, I thought I needed to applaud her efforts.

And that was it. We left Cambodia less a stack of one dollar bills, but with a suitcase full of silk scarves and Warning: Land Mine t-shirts. And great memories. : ) Lia suhn hao-y!