Motorbike Sir?

The annual Water Festival hit Phnom Penh this past weekend. If I am living here next year, I will be sure and head down to the beach and avoid the whole scene. The festival was interesting, but the hordes of people made getting around a huge pain in the ass.

Phnom Penh sits at the junction of two rivers, the Mekong and the Tonle Sap. The Tonle Sap flows from the huge Tonle Sap Lake, which lies to the north of Phnom Penh. During the rainy season, so much excess water flows down the Mekong from China and Laos that it actually causes the Tonle Sap River to reverse flow. By absorbing all of this extra water flowing down the Mekong, it prevents what would be massive amounts of flooding in the Mekong Delta. The Tonle Sap Lake swells from 1000 square miles to nearly 4000, turning it into one of the most productive freshwater fisheries in the world. The excess water also replenishes nutrients to the fertile soil of Cambodia.

The Water Festival commemorates the start of the dry season and the change in flow of the Tonle Sap River. For three days, Cambodians from the provinces pour into the capital to celebrate the harvest, see big city life, and watch boat races. Along the riverside, vendors selling food, baskets, and just about everything else set up stalls as thousands of Cambodians walk up and down the road. Thousands more stand on the banks of the river watching boats race from the Japanese Bridge (named because the Japanese paid and built it) to the royal palace two at a time. Something like 360 boat teams from every province participated in the action.

Standing on the banks of the Tonle Sap, it is really hard to know what is going on in the races. You will watch two boats coming down the river, pass you, and then hit the finish line. About 30 seconds later, another two boats come down, racing each other. I saw no programs, though there were loudspeakers set up with a running commentary in Khmer. Hundreds of years ago, the boat races used to be an opportunity for the military to show off their prowess in front of the king. Now each boat is sponsored by some ministry or organization. ACE, an English school, even sponsored a boat.

At the intersection of street 108 and the river, there is a bandstand where the latest music sensations perform for crowds weekly. During the day there were a variety of booths set up promoting various products. They all had obscenely loud sound systems blasting out everything from shitty Khmer karaoke music to sales pitches. They were all competing with each other for your attention, and in this part of the world, louder is better. I feared permanent hearing loss, so I quickly vacated the area. At night in the bandstand, Khmer pop stars performed for large crowds that did nothing but stare at the stage – no dancing, clapping, or even swaying.

On Friday night I was heading down to a pub to meet some friends. I rounded a corner near the Royal Palace and was confronted with about 10,000 Khmers trying to walk in the opposite direction down the street as me. I slowly made headway against the tide of people, who would all look up at me in awe – once in a while I would get a “hello”. Apparently most of them had never seen a white man before. Occasionally people came up to me and touched me, fascinated by my skin? dress? Frankly I don’t know. What I do know is that I was glad for the whole ordeal to be over.

One of the more interesting things I did was go to the mall. Cambodia has only one modern mall, complete with escalators and a food court. Thousands of Khmers came to see the place – I have never seen a more crowded mall in my life. It was really interesting watching rural Khmers see and try out an escalator for the first time. Lines would form with people trying to get on, pushing and shoving for a chance to ride the strange contraption. Most would apprehensively approach it and quickly jump onto it, grabbing hold of one another so they would not fall over. There were even security guards standing at the bottom helping people get on. I spoke with a fellow teacher the other night who saw an entire family continuously fall down an up escalator, rolling on top of each other for a number of minutes before someone helped them out.

In retrospect, the Water Festival was an interesting experience, though I am not sure if I would attend again. Many residents of Phnom Penh actually leave town and head off on vacation. I will be sure to do the same next year. This post may give you a negative impression of the festivities. It is certainly something worth seeing, just be aware that there is a lot of people and a lot of noise.

Tags: Cambodia

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 27th, 2004 at 2:55 am and is filed under Cambodia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.