Water Festival

  Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Saturday, November 4, 2006

It's Water Festival time!!!! It is true....thousands, if not millions, of Cambodians flock here to Phnom Penh for this annual festival. It is a boat race with about 450 team entries from Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. There was such an atmosphere about the place which is just thronged with people! The teams are on row boats and two teams race against each other to move into the next round. The festival started today and ends on Monday with the final races. We sat on the concrete slope by the riverside all day just race and people watching. We picked a prime spot as all the boats stopped in front of us after they raced to have a break. All the teams sang and played music to keep themselves and us amused!

I took out my binoculars and all the kids were just staring at them. Cara also had hers with her so we gave them to the kids to use. It was so great to see the look on their face when they looked through the binoculars and realised what they could see. These kids were great and spent the afternoon with us. We were making faces at the kids and all the adults behind us thought this was hysterical. We're probably the bigger kids!

I bought the kids a packet of biscuits and offered them to them. They each politely took one and when I handed over the last 6 biscuits the smallest boy took them and stuffed his face with delight. Such cute kids!

One of the teams had 77 members on the row boat! At the start of the day one of the boats capsized....not surprised! In the evening after the races were finished the fieworks started. A fleet of boats all lit up went down the river afterwards. Thousands of people were all walking in the direction of the Palace so we asked where they were going.........to the music....so we followed. In the park there was a lot going on but no music. A fella approached us and asked if we wanted to go to the music....of course....so we followed him......to a disco! This fella was straight out of Hillcrest....the first ladyboy we saw in Cambodia. .Such a laugh, at 7pm, to be in this disco hall which would spark memories of the local youth club discos with the disco ball and dire music! There was a break between each song and everyone sat down for 2 minutes then up again. Yo-yo's! At one stage the floor was empty so myself and Gubby took the floor and danced away to ...mm....mm... local Cambodian disco music! Interesting to say the least!