TRAVERSE 57
TRAVEL FEATURE - CAMBODIA LEIGH WILKINS
PEOPLE OF THE GREAT LAKE
Pungent odours filled the air . The want to breath stifled by the thick oily smell . It made sense , this was the road to a fishing village , in fact the village was the road , a place where locals took advantage of the hot sun to dry all sorts of consumable goods .
Fish abound as we made our way through Kampong Khleang toward the floating village that lay beyond . It wasn ’ t the first such village we ’ d ridden to as we ’ d circled the Tonle Sap , the Great Lake of Cambodia , yet it was the first that combined floating buildings with this that sat high above the current water level on stilts that seemed impossibly thin .
Days earlier on the western side of Tonle Sap we ’ d made our way through back roads and remote villages to find the town of Krakor and then Kampong Luong , the floating village . We rode along a dirt track bringing us to something that resembled Barter Town in the third instalment of the Mad Max franchise . Unlike the town run by Tina Turner ’ s character , Aunty Entity , this place is the start of Kampong Luong and the floating suburb beyond .
Tuk Tuk ’ s and Honda Dreams soon gave way to a flotilla of the weird and wonderful . Boats of all shapes and sizes were lined along the shore , a waterline that could be as close to Krakor as two kilometres or as far as seven . The Great Lakes water level fluctuates that much .
Suppressed by the heat and humidity , five of us clambered aboard one such vessel and as the tired engine wheezed us away from the embankment we quickly realised that the Tonle Sap is much more than just a lake , it ’ s the life blood of an entire culture .
Tonle Sap is part of the Mekong River system and the largest lake in Southeast Asia , the freshwater providing life for the ecosystem and
TRAVERSE 57