Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TONLÉ SAP: HEARTBEAT OF CAMBODIA
The Tonlé Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, is an incredible natural phenomenon that
provides fish and irrigation waters for half the population of Cambodia. It is also home to 90,000
people, many of them ethnic Vietnamese, who live in 170 floating villages.
Linking the lake with the Mekong at Phnom Penh is a 100km-long channel known as the Tonlé Sap
River. From June to early October, wet-season rains rapidly raise the level of the Mekong, backing up
the Tonlé Sap River and causing it to flow northwestward into the Tonlé Sap lake. During this period,
the lake surface increases in size by a factor of four or five, from 2500 sq km to 3000 sq km up to
10,000 sq km to 16,000 sq km, and its depth increases from an average of about 2m to more than 10m.
An unbelievable 20% of the Mekong's wet-season flow is absorbed by the Tonlé Sap. In October, as
the water level of the Mekong begins to fall, the Tonlé Sap River reverses direction, draining the wa-
ters of the lake back into the Mekong.
This extraordinary process makes the Tonlé Sap an ideal habitat for birds, snakes and turtles, as
well as one of the world's richest sources of freshwater fish: the flooded forests make for fertile
spawning grounds, while the dry season creates ideal conditions for fishing. Experts believe that fish
migrations from the lake help to restock fisheries as far north as China.
This unique ecosystem was declared a Unesco Biosphere Reserve in 2001, but this may not be
enough to protect it from the twin threats of upstream dams and rampant deforestation. Dams are
already in operation on the Chinese section of the Mekong, known locally as the Lancang, and the
massive new Xayaboury Dam in Laos is now under construction, the first major dam on the Middle or
Lower Mekong.
You can learn more about the Tonlé Sap and its unique ecosystem at the Gecko Centre (
Click here
)
near Siem Reap.
Cambodia's 435km coastline is a big draw for visitors on the lookout for isolated trop-
ical beaches. There are islands aplenty off the coast of Sihanoukville, Kep and Koh Kong.
Along Cambodia's northern border with Thailand, the plains collide with a striking
sandstone escarpment more than 300km long that towers up to 550m above the lowlands:
the Dangkrek Mountains (Chuor Phnom Dangkrek). One of the best places to get a sense
of this area is Prasat Preah Vihear.
In the northeastern corner of the country, the plains give way to the Eastern Highlands,
a remote region of densely forested mountains that extends east into Vietnam's Central
Highlands and north into Laos. The wild provinces of Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri provide
a home for many minority (hill-tribe) peoples and are taking off as an ecotourism hot spot.
Researchers estimate that about 50 to 100 wild elephants live in Mondulkiri Province. A simil-
ar number live in the Cardamom Mountains.
