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| They Never See Land - Life of the Floating Village People on Tonle Sap |
They Never See Land - Life of the Floating Village People on Tonle Sap
Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia located in Cambodia This lake is a combination of rivers and lakes with flows that change twice a year and sizes that can grow and shrink according to the season from November to May.
Cambodia experiences a dry season where the water will flow into the Mekong River, but during the rainy season which lasts in June, the flow of water will reverse from the Mekong River to the tonesap, then make the river expand into a very large lake, uniquely Lake Tonlesap is not only an important point for biodiversity more than that.
This lake is also a very convenient land for those who live in floating villages, most of the people living in these floating villages are immigrants from Vietnam who have lived in Cambodia since three to four generations. Although many of them were born and raised in Cambodia, but not everyone has an official identity or birth certificate proving their citizenship, meanwhile, Cambodian law denies land ownership rights to those who are not citizens so these people found an excellent solution by living off the shore of the lake.
Their status as recognized non-citizens hinders the possibility of finding better jobs or accessing education so the only way to survive for them is by fishing in the waters of Tonle Sap Lake, they have inhabited Tonle Sap Lake for decades and made it as a home while adapting Water as part of their lives one of the quite popular villages in Tonle Sap is known as jongkeneas basically This village is not much different from ordinary villages, except that it is on the water, the houses in this village are made of bamboo anchored at the bottom of the lake.
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| They Never See Land - Life of the Floating Village People on Tonle Sap |
Although it looks like a nomadic settlement, in fact in this village there have been established schools, hospitals, churches and monasteries, restaurants, grocery stores, boat workshops, police stations, etc., the only mode of transportation in tonlesap is boats, which almost everyone is very proficient at using And Almost everyone in the region is directly or indirectly related to fishing as a livelihood.
In addition to fresh catches, people in this village also dry fish and shrimp and sell in the market, there are many floating villages around Lake Tonlesap, but only a few of them can be easily visited, unfortunately tourism in some of the most popular floating villages is run by companies that commit fraud at the expense of visitors and villagers, even though the profits obtained from ticket sales are not profitable at all In addition, tourists claim to be forced to buy goods at very expensive prices to donate to village children where the village children themselves never receive them.