Don’t mean to constantly dish out an excuse for not updating my blog religiously but I’ve been riding along srok Khmer’s flow and have not found one place to dock. If Khmers are not working nor eating, then they are celebrating life. Say, it’s not an over exaggeration to claim that one is guaranteed to spot a wedding on the daily: swab out your ears and you’ll hear traditional Khmer wedding melodies. If I live here long enough, I may have to start a ‘wedding savings account’ so that I have enough to all my newlywed poukmaks (friends)!
This week’s party: Bon Om Thook. As I wrote in the last post, the Water Festival celebrates the changing of the seasons, usually around the beginning of November. Now that the Tonle Sap Lake has doubled in size, its fish have bred, and the rice fields are submerged in rainwater, the country can store away its raincoats, umbrellas and torrential downpours for the next 5-6 months. This year, like every year, boat racers representing all 24 provinces came to Phnom Penh to sign off on the rainy season. Of course, they did not come unarmed. When my Khmer poukmaks warned me that the whole country was coming to town, I told myself yea, yea, yea, it doesn’t get any more packed than Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Boy was I mistaken.
Days before the scheduled celebrations on November 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, vendors claim their stalls and stock up on inventory in anticipation of the crowd. The police round up as many homeless men and women as they could and brought them to the "ministry of social services" (which they should do on a regular and properly) to make Phnom Penh look “pristine”. And as the river reverses its flow, the population does so in unison: the city fled to the country while the country flocked to the city. Given all the brouhaha, I decided to stay put in Phnom Penh.
Day 1: let the games commence
Early start to walk past the commercial stalls and all I could hear was “boom, boom, boom”. The whole place was shaking with promotions for telephone services, deodorants, and toothpastes. I cut my day short to work all day so that I could play hard over the next two days.
Day 2: no room for losers
After venturing out of the apartment and past the numerous blockaded roads, I finally arrive at the riverfront on Sisowath Quay…talk about being packed like sardines! The boats are racing each other two by two as they are being cheered on by their hometowns. This year’s fear that the water is 1 meter higher than usual due to recent floods is not taken seriously by the boat racers. In fact, they take pride in their well-adorned boats (or maybe their huge guns and calves), which are meticulously handcrafted by their local villagers.
Day 3: the King and I and a blessing from the skies
I should have taken into account the time it would take to safely escort the King to his royal seat on the riverfront, when I left the apartment at 3:15 thinking that I would get to the river in time to meet up with my poukmaks at 3:30. I was just in front of the Royal Palace, just a mere 3 minutes away from my meeting point when the Cambodian National Police blocked off all access for both vehicles as well as pedestrians. The little kids trickled to the front of the crowd while the uninterested stayed behind to take a breather from
This week’s party: Bon Om Thook. As I wrote in the last post, the Water Festival celebrates the changing of the seasons, usually around the beginning of November. Now that the Tonle Sap Lake has doubled in size, its fish have bred, and the rice fields are submerged in rainwater, the country can store away its raincoats, umbrellas and torrential downpours for the next 5-6 months. This year, like every year, boat racers representing all 24 provinces came to Phnom Penh to sign off on the rainy season. Of course, they did not come unarmed. When my Khmer poukmaks warned me that the whole country was coming to town, I told myself yea, yea, yea, it doesn’t get any more packed than Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Boy was I mistaken.
Days before the scheduled celebrations on November 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, vendors claim their stalls and stock up on inventory in anticipation of the crowd. The police round up as many homeless men and women as they could and brought them to the "ministry of social services" (which they should do on a regular and properly) to make Phnom Penh look “pristine”. And as the river reverses its flow, the population does so in unison: the city fled to the country while the country flocked to the city. Given all the brouhaha, I decided to stay put in Phnom Penh.
Day 1: let the games commence
Early start to walk past the commercial stalls and all I could hear was “boom, boom, boom”. The whole place was shaking with promotions for telephone services, deodorants, and toothpastes. I cut my day short to work all day so that I could play hard over the next two days.
Day 2: no room for losers
After venturing out of the apartment and past the numerous blockaded roads, I finally arrive at the riverfront on Sisowath Quay…talk about being packed like sardines! The boats are racing each other two by two as they are being cheered on by their hometowns. This year’s fear that the water is 1 meter higher than usual due to recent floods is not taken seriously by the boat racers. In fact, they take pride in their well-adorned boats (or maybe their huge guns and calves), which are meticulously handcrafted by their local villagers.
Day 3: the King and I and a blessing from the skies
I should have taken into account the time it would take to safely escort the King to his royal seat on the riverfront, when I left the apartment at 3:15 thinking that I would get to the river in time to meet up with my poukmaks at 3:30. I was just in front of the Royal Palace, just a mere 3 minutes away from my meeting point when the Cambodian National Police blocked off all access for both vehicles as well as pedestrians. The little kids trickled to the front of the crowd while the uninterested stayed behind to take a breather from
the festivities. All the ones in between shifted left, right, up and down for the next 45 minutes to catch a 5 second glimpse of His Majesty King Sihamoni. Just as he waved through the crowd, a roll of thunder took announced the arrival of the rain. Could it have been a blessing for the King and the champions of the finals boat race? If so, I didn’t stay long enough to see the finals as I was more concerned about finding shelter from the downpour.
