Dotted across the emerald water expanse are small makeshift huts made of wood, scraps of metals, tarpaulin, and whatnot. Few clustered together, the rest separated by the colorful algae water. Tiny boats were attached to all the houses. Some float lazily as the villagers go about doing their daily chores, fishing, or selling wares. It will be a usual scene only in an unusual village.
Thousands of ethnic Vietnamese who used to live in Cambodia earlier found a home away from home on this very ‘no man’s land’ Tonle Sap Lake. The years between 1975 and 1979 witnessed the greatest massacre of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. The legacy of Democratic Kampuchea had torn the country apart. Years of deprivation, starvation, and disease followed into meaningless nothingness. With families lost and dead in the scariest genocide of the 20th century, identities denied by both the Vietnamese and Cambodian governments, and nothing to claim as their own due to lack of any paper evidence, these immigrants chose the most precarious option of life, living on the water, a neutral space.
Maneuvering, across the lake, as you go around the unique village, more and more astonishment will await you. The village has everything, from a pristine white church to a school and a restaurant offering a perfect view all around. It will let you ponder the survival feat of man in general.
#life #survival #travelblogger #cambodia
Location: Tonle Sap Floating Village, Cambodia
5 сен 2024
