Why Here?

It's a lake. It can be a really big lake.

However by American Standards, it's not much. Lake Erie, the smallest of the American Great Lakes, is 25,700 square kilometers. the Tonlé Sap lake, in the dry season, has a surface area barely one-tenth that large and it's only a meter deep. More of a pond than a lake. That NASA satellite image on the right suggests this is not a destination location for vacationers.

But Tonlé Sap is no ordinary lake/river system. Depending on the source, the very name means Great Lake or Large Fresh Water River. And when the monsoons come, things happen.

During the rainy season, the nearby Mekong River is at full flood, and the Tonlé Sap river that drains the lake reverses its direction, raising the level of the lake to nine meters. The lake's volume increases 50-fold.  Its surface area becomes six times larger or more -- 16,000 sq km (the State Department says 24,605 sq. km.)   As it swells, the Tonlé Sap lake becomes the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. When the river reverses direction, it brings with it abundant alluvial nutrients, which makes Tonlé Sap  the strategic protein resource for the people of Cambodia.


The Tonlé Sap system is an ecological hot spot designated as a UNESCO biosphere in 1997. Among its riches are 149 species of fish, nearly extinct Siamese Crocodiles and the world's largest population of freshwater snakes.  Also present, in diminishing numbers, is the Mekong giant catfish, the largest freshwater fish in the world. It can reach 10 feet in length, and weigh more than 500 pounds. And for this river system, it is the canary in the coal mine. According to Wikipedia, it is "especially vulnerable to chemical changes, which is beneficial in alerting authorities of trouble in the river ecosystem." The resource is threatened by overfishing and ecological degradation, and that can spell problems for Cambodians who depend on Tonlé Sap for their livelihood and for food.


In March, I am visiting the Tonlé Sap River with my childhood friend, Jay Hastings. I have joined his effort to help protect that resource in a very small way. 

That's what this blog is about. If you want to follow it, you don't have to do anything. I think I'll be able to let you know every time there's a new posting. There's probably going to be plenty of Internet linkups in Phnom Penh.

If you don't want to follow it, just let me know, that's perfectly understandable. Your life is busy and you get more e-mails than you want.

But if you're curious to see how the other half lives, come along with us as we prepare for the trip and then take that 20-hour flight to a part of the world most of us have never seen.

I'll be telling a small part of the story of a people who are still recovering from one of the worst genocides in a century -- how they live, and what some of them are doing to make their lives better.

It's going to be hot -- about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but you won't be the ones sweating. Thank your lucky stars for that.

If someone has forwarded this to you and you would like to be added to the mailing list, let me know by e-mailing me at dancingpotter@gmail.com.

Love,

Robert