Yeak Loam

I know I’ve mentioned Yeak Loam a few times before on this blog, but I think it deserves a fuller post to itself.

Yeak Loam (or Yaklom, Yeak Laom, Yek Loam Lake, etc – phonetic Khmer spelling issues), is a volcanic crater lake, located around 5km from Ban Lung town and around 2km from my host home. It’s one of the more famous natural sites around Ratanakiri Province, due to its relative accessibility, and as such is quite a tourist destination! It is also a sacred place for the indigenous people of the Yeak Loam community (made up of our host home villages of Lapo, Phnom, Chri, Sel and Loam), used for ceremonies and celebrations, as well as a place to relax.

The lake is around 800m in diameter, 48m at its deepest, and the water is beautifully clear and almost tepid. As the lake is a protected site, and owned (after a 25 year lease agreement in 1996) by the community, it is surrounded by traditional Cambodian jungle, or primary tropical forest – a relative rarity in a province with a massively increasing deforestation rate – and when there you feel completely surrounded by it.

We have quite a limited amount of free time here, especially free time during daylight hours, but the lake is popular place to go on a Sunday afternoon, to swim and talk. It is very calm and quiet, and provides quite a contrast to the busy Ban Lung town, or even the constant animal motion of the villages.

My host father, Pun, used to be pretty senior in the Yeak Loam Commune – a group (of older men) who help to manage the lake, and who are the major partner for another of our VSO-ICS teams. Their main challenge is balancing the tourism potential of the lake, and the access and facility demands that incurs, and the spiritual significance of the site. One of the main problems with tourists visiting and swimming in the lake is their lack of modesty: one should really swim almost fully clothed, and a bikini makes everyone very uncomfortable. However, although as mid-term volunteers we are very aware of these conditions, they are somewhat unspoken, and developing informative signage for tourists is one of their main priorities.

The CIYA team are also working at the lake, with the indigenous craftspeople and the cultural heritage centre located there. The centre aims to showcase the geography, language, music and art of the community, but is very poorly maintained, with damaged or eroded (water, sunlight, ants) images, documents and material, and serious problems with electricity and security. CIYA is working with the Yeak Loam team to rejuvenate the centre, to update the information and artifacts present, and to increase the labelling and information available to visitors.

It’s a pretty challenging 2km cycle to the lake, with 3 serious climbs that only become harder after an afternoon of swimming. However, no one is reluctant to make the journey!