Water Festival

Over the weekend of November 20-23 was Water Festival here in the city. This meant no work on Monday or Tuesday, Fireworks every night, and loads of people coming into the city. I was excited to see what this would look like, as most holiday's means the city is almost empty from the departure for the residents. Water Festival is celebrated because twice a year the current of the Tonle Sap will change the direction it flows. This weekend marks the changing of one of those times. It is thought to happen because in PP the Tonle Sap and Mekong river combine. The Mekong apparently at this time of year has so much water that it pushes the current of the Tonle Sap North instead of the usual South ward flow.

The air in the city seemed to buzz with excitement and the warmth of the days  gave the feel of summer. But everything in my head told me it is November and the Christmas decorations I saw while Skyping with my parents couldn’t be denied. But the activities and fireworks during water festival whispered differently. I went with friends to the river front to see some of the boat races and hoped to see the single team of rowers that were foreigners. Apparently in years past their boat has sunk.

We found out upon arriving that the foreigners had gone earlier then we thought but we still enjoyed watching the boats. On each boat was 50 rowers each in a matching shirt and they moved in such a fluid and perfect way that it was fun to watch them speed along the river. They start at the North most point of the river front to the Southern most place, two boats at a time. There is a load speaker explaining which boats are racing and each boat has a number. The foreigners, who had only practiced once, had begun and then were passed by two other races. I'm sure their were multiple contributing factors to this loss, but seeing as they were using a boat built for Khmer people who are smaller and lighter then the foreigners, I'm sure that was one of the reasons. The only way we could speculate how they decide who wins from the over 300 boats racing is by time.

Video of one of the "races":

The races happen all day for the three days and only the teams that "win" more on to the next day's races. After watching the races for a while I headed back to my house. From the kitchen in the evening I could hear the boom of fireworks and went up to our roof to see if I could view them. Side stepping a bat on the floor I was able to see the fireworks popping and booming in all their brilliant colors.

The following evening with some of my housemates and a friend we journeyed to the river front hoping to see the fireworks and eat food at the night market. The riverfront was chaos and because of the extra traffic we got their late and missed the fireworks. So fighting through the crowd we went to the market to grab some dinner. After eating we walked along the riverfront to find a building where we could sit on the open roof to see the floats in the river. Each float is done by one of the different "ministries" here. The Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Planning, etc. Here are some pictures of what we saw.

After a little while I headed back to the house so I could get up early in the morning to go running. My fellow companions stayed out and got some pictures of the river front from the other bank and saw the second set of fireworks they had planned for later.

I spent the rest of the Water festival avoiding crowds, making posts for my blog, and catching up on The Office. It was marvelous to have a few days when I didn't have to work or travel but could simply enjoy resting and doing what ever I wanted.