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    Floating Through Life

    February 1st, 2008 by mary

    For a diversion from the wats of Angkor we did a day trip to the nearby Tonle Lake. We took a tuktuk out but the whole boat ride was all controlled by the government. Only pennies get passed on to the people that actual live there, of course. We paid our fee and were ushered onto a boat held together by fish guts. The driver didn’t speak a word of english. He just drove, and very slowly at that. We were passed by everyone. The river was opaque brown and yet people were washing dishes and cooking noodles in it. Everything was on floating platforms from the homes to churches, schools, stores, and mechanic shops. Small row boats pull up along side and latch on. A kid boards with a woven basket filled with bananas and cold drinks. The river widens and leads to the lake with ocean like immensity. The floating village is made up of boats that number near a hundred and stretch far and wide through the trees at the river mouth. We get dropped off at a pontoon restaurant with a pool of fish next to the caged crocodiles. It’s the deliciousness of the croc meat that has made them extinct in the wild all along the Mekong. For a short while we watch the comings and going of the fishing villages. Kids and mothers selling lunch with babes in tow, men bringing in fishing nets, boys having water fights while floating in big metal pots. Many of these people never touch land. It was a nice slow float back to shore where we were dropped off near one of the many trash heaps. The locals seem to use the river for everything including a trash dump. Some naked kids came running up to us with open palms. I gave them bananas that we had bought earlier from one of the moms on the boats with their snotty kids. This country has a phenomenal number of children, of which the boys don’t wear any clothes until they’re six years old.

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