Tonle Sap Lake
Vast seasonal lake whose river reverses course twice a year, ringed by floating fishing villages.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Tonle Sap Lake near Siem Reap follows children paddling themselves to school across Southeast Asia's largest lake, weaving past floating houses and a basketball court built on pontoons. It traces the odd feat this lake performs twice a year, when monsoon floodwaters shove the Tonle Sap River into running backward and the lake balloons to many times its dry season size. Watch the boats gliding by as you listen, the same little wooden hulls that double as bicycles, school buses and fishing craft.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Chong Khneas Floating Village
Stilted lakeside settlement of houseboats that migrates with the Tonle Sap's dramatic seasonal flood.
Kampong Phluk
Stilted fishing village raised above a floodplain that swells with Tonle Sap's seasonal floods.
Kompong Khleang Floating and Stilted Village
Stilted village raised eight to ten meters above a seasonally rising and falling lake.
Ang Pier of Mechrey
Seasonal boat pier where stilt-house villagers relocate yearly as the lake's flood pulse reshapes the shoreline.
Prek Toal Bird View
Flooded forest tower over a globally vital waterbird colony, reborn after egg poachers became its guardians.
Old Market
Covered riverside market of live fish, frogs and eels from Tonle Sap Lake, alongside silks and stone carvings.