It was a clear sunny day. You could see all the way to the curvature of the Earth where the sky and water met. Nothing special, right? But this is not the ocean. This is a lake. After our second day in Siem Reap, Pol gave us a choice. Our third day could be spent seeing another temple ruin or we could go for a boat ride on the lake. No one chose the temple. Bright and early we boarded the boat for a trip on Tonlé Sap which is Khmer for Great Lake. The Cambodians are refreshingly direct that way. While on our cruise we would be visiting a floating village. Once away from the dock I saw vegetation on the water. I naively asked if it was mangrove. Pol replied that what I was seeing were the tops of trees. In the dry season that area was dry land and the people planted rice. Stubbornly ignorant I asked, "What do the people in the floating village do when that happens?" Pol patiently replied that they just move further out onto the lake (Well duuh!). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Tonlé Sap is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia. It is unusual for two reasons: its flow changes direction twice a year, and the portion that forms the lake expands and shrinks dramatically with the seasons. From November to May, Cambodia's dry season, the Tonlé Sap drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. However, when the year's heavy rains begin in June, the it backs up to form an enormous lake. For most of the year the lake is fairly small, around one meter (3 feet) deep and with an area of 2,700 square km (1,620 sq mi). During the monsoon season, however, the Tonlé Sap river, which connects the lake with the Mekong river, reverses its flow. Water is pushed up from the Mekong into the lake, increasing its area to 16,000 square km (9,600 sq mi) and its depth to up to nine meters (29 feet), flooding nearby fields and forests. The floodplain provides a great breeding ground for fish. ~ From Wikipedia