24 November 2009 - Reasons to celebrate Part I or Cambodian Jousting

Reason 1 - Friendly doctors

Just as I thought that my blog-material had dried up, I slip over in the shower and sprain my wrist. And to add to my list of SOS treatable ailments, I get a throat infection. On the face of this might not seem reason to celebrate, especially as my next batch of antibiotics cost me nearly as much as the sutures. However, on the plus side, if I need SOS anytime soon I will be able to contact them on a first-names basis. Bit like a loyalty card.

But all this is just a bit historic, my entries being a bit sporadic, due largely to having a good time. So let's back track, and write something that looks a little less like a twitter entry.

Reason 2 - Festivals

September squeezed in a holiday (another reason to celebrate) in the form of Pchum Ben (Festival of the Dead - perhaps not quite so cheery). In real terms this meant that I was able to take a few days of work, which coincided with Sarra's visit. More interestingly, here is a resume of the significance of the days off, courtesy of the internet:

On the 15th day of the waxing moon during the tenth month of the Khmer calendar, called Pheaktrobotr, Cambodian Buddhists celebrate Bonn Pchum Ben _ the Festival of the Dead. This celebration usually falls in the first half of September in the western calendar. This year it falls on September 17.But the festival does not just begin and end on one day. In fact, it lasts 15 days, each of which is called a day of Kan Ben. A Ben is an offering.During the first 14 days, people takes turns offering food to the monks of their local pagodas in the hope that their offering will reach the souls of their ancestors and friends by virtue of the monks' sermons. The word of Ben is derived from Sankrit pinda, or balls of rice to be offered to the souls of the dead.The tradition is an ancient one.Inscriptions in stone left by King Yaçovarman (889-910) tell us that he built numerous monasteries during that period, and that pinda were offered on a monthly basis, not only to "abandoned souls" _ souls with no family to make offerings to them _ but also to souls of combatants who had died for their country. All religions were banned during the genocidal Pol Pot regime (1975-79), and religious followers killed. Under its dark reign, the regime killed at least 28,000 Buddhist monks and destroyed 3,968 pagodas. Many former pagodas as well as mosques, churches and other sacred places were turned into prisons, torture rooms, pig farms or manure depots.But after Cambodia found peace, the festival was revived, and today it is celebrated in 3,731 pagodas housing 50,873 monks across the country.The present-day Ben are balls of glutinous rice, cooked in coconut milk and mixed with various ingredients according to local customs.The way a Ben is held also differs slightly from locality to locality.The final day of Pchum Ben is the most important for all followers.On this day, all Khmer Buddhist followers, the rich as well as the poor, manage to prepare food and other offerings for their visit to a pagoda. On this day, at every pagoda around the country, the mass collection of offerings (Bens) is dedicated to the souls of ancestors. If this duty is ignored, it is believed that the soul is cursed and will haunt the neglectful descendents for the rest of the year. Each year, State and private company employees are given a one-day holiday to observe this vital duty.

In the early morning of the last day of the Pchum Ben Festival, visitors can join the throngs at the pagodas and take photos of local people of all ages in traditional costume.Women especially, don their best traditional dress, and come wearing their silk Sampot Hol Sampot Phamuong, embroidered blouses and scarves and bearing offerings, candles and incense sticks. Num Onsam and sweet Num Korm (steamed cakes wrapped in banana leaves) are taken to pagodas during the festival to share among participants. Num Onsam is a kind of cylindrical cake of glutinous rice wrapped around a mixture of pork, salt and other ingredients. Num Korm is shaped like a pyramid and made of rice-flour and filled with a coconut and palm sugar mixture. Money raised among Buddhist followers and offered to monks _ on this occasion and during other cultural and social events _ goes towards the construction or renovation of it (temples) and community developments such as the construction of bridges and schools, tree planting projects, or as donations to needy families. Khmers believe that fraternal feelings are fostered with the exchange of food and Num Onsam and Num Korm cakes.This ensures that visitors to any pagoda during the Pchum Ben festival will be warmly welcomed and invited to taste these cakes and enjoy the festivities.

Reason 3 - More Festivals

November on the other hand offered the slightly more obviously joyous "Water Festival", which is possibly second only to Khmer New Year in terms of celebrations. The idea of festivals typically makes me laugh and fill with cynicism. If you believe what travel guides say, you would believe that virtually the entire world's population descends upon the location in question to share in the carnival atmosphere and the festivities, which of course transcend anything you will ever experience...

At this point Japan springs to mind and the annual festival at Takayama boasting 100 year old floats parading round the streets like the pied piper of Hamlyn followed by millions of tourist rats. You see the thing is, this year it was rained off. The trouble with floats which are over 100 years old, is that there is a risk that the ornate gold leaf and wood warps or peels off if it gets too wet! Thankfully, and whilst I didn't count them all, there can't have been more than a few thousand people who had made the trip this year. Don't get me wrong, I loved the hida beef, the sake and the sitting cross-legged on the floor, and even the wet wander round the streets hoping to catch site of said floats in their "garages" (the float keepers left the doors open so we could see them in partial glory in spite of the weather). It's just that my expectations had been set as high as Mt Fuji! So, with this in mind, I imagined the Tonle Sap with a few overcrowded canoes, just to play it safe....

But, the Water Festival managed to live up to my expectations. Not only were the roads around Riverside shut off, but the bank itself was packed with people watching the races and eating from the strategically placed food stalls which had materialised over night. Others less keen on crowds and more keen on a nice cold beer or two, grabbed the balcony seats at FCC for the comfort and air con factor.

Reason 4 - Sun

Aptly, as the Water Festival marks the end of the rainy season, November 1,2 and 3 were very very hot. If this is looking like an excuse rather than a reason to celebrate, then sobeit!

The Festival, more properly known as Bon Om Thong has its roots in ancient times, when warriers would prove their prowess before the kings in competitions - the nearest European equivalent being a jousting competition, so I've read. Must have been a mighty horse.

This year, the river was crowded with river traffic. About 400 boats were either racing or waiting to race. Each of the 60 foot boats (ish) held around 60 paddlers who stand up and force the water behind them with their wooden oars in what looks like a maniacal frenzy in order to make it to the finish line over a kilometer away, first. I wondered how the boats got there (onto the river) and where they disappeared to afterwards, particularly when the city center was gridlocked with motodops, a doubled population and more batter covered snacks than you can shake your paddle at.

Reason 5 - Securing seats at the FCC (wearing a bit thin!)

Colleen, Charlotte and I did the whole riverbank photography stint, collating no doubt hundreds of near identical pictures of boats weighed down by colourfully dressed Khmer in various stages of athletic feat: from the digging the paddle forward stage to the dragging it right the way back behind you effort. It might not yet be an olympic sport but 60 men in a boat looks like hard work to me, particularly if you are stood up, and particularly if the temperature has soared to an unreasonable high. Men have drowned at the Water Festival, and this comes as no surprise.

In amongst the Khmer faces you catch sight of the odd foreign boat, identifiable by its paddlers donning both uniform t-shirts, specially created for the event, and a touch of sunburn.

Reason 6 - Angkor Wat

Speaking of athletic feats of sorts, I think I will be doing the Angkor Wat cycle ride. Not only is cycling far more civilised in the heat than running but it takes you on a very memorable tour of the main temples as well as some of the lesser known wonders. Kickboxing, Hash House Harriers and gym work will have to be enough to get me ready! ..........and speaking of Angkor Wat, Siem Reap apparently hosts its own mini-version of the Water Festival.

Reason 7 - Natural wonders

......And speaking of natural wonders (Angkor Wat), one interesting fact about the Tonle Sap is that it has an identity crisis, or at least a Jekyll and Hyde existence. For much of the year it is a river and at other times a lake. During November to May, the dry season, the water drains into the Mekong creating a river, whereas in the monsoon season, the water reverses its flow and creates a lake. The Water Festival occurs when the water is reversing its flow.

Reason 8 - Now that's what I call a float!

When the sun had set and we had made it to one of the many parties overlooking the river, the second spectacle began. Huge floating light displays drifted effortly past, and so the people of Phnom Penh ebbed indoors and then flowed back out again onto the streets to get closer to the water, the floats and the remaining snacks. Across the river (or is it lake?) the bank was lined with gently revolving ferris wheels. By the following night they would be gone, or perhaps I just wasn't looking for them anymore. By the way, where did Pontoon go? Apparently the authorities have moved it. Whilst I'm still not much of a clubber, and Pontoon is nothing special, it does sometimes offer the comfort of the familiar at the end of a night cut prematurely short by closing time elsewhere.

Living in a country like Cambodia with its destructive history, the ramifications of which are in evidence all around you, it is easy to see how people become defeatist, angry and disallusioned by their environment. However it is also easy to see why any excuse to celebrate should be found! Perhaps a healthy philosophy wherever you are.