Water Festival

This past weekend in Phnom Penh has been crazy. Literally a million people come in from the provinces to participate in the Water Festival, a three day festival in November with boat races, fireworks, vendors, Ferris wheels, and light parades on the river at night. On the streets of Riverside (one of the districts of Phnom Penh, can you guess where?) there are vendors everywhere, even more than normal. They sell bright pink and orange and yellow pinwheels, flashy plastic light up toys, and little festively painted bamboo animals on sticks. There is an abundance of people selling small baggies of sweet sugar cane juice, pushing their carts filled with long pale sticks of sugar cane and the roller that flattens the cane and squeezes out the liquid.

The crush of people is amazing. There are more people in Riverside than anywhere I have ever been before. It is a zoo. There are children running around, people yelling, motos beeping trying to get through the crowd. There is so much activity everywhere you turn; there is no respite from it all. Even when you find a restaurant with a balcony above the crowds, it is still loud with music and voices, and your nose is accosted with the most delicious smells one moment and the most vile scent the next. Then, on top of everything, it is hot hot hot. The sun beats down during the day, and at night, there is plenty of residual heat with the crush of people keeping the evening air from cooling off. It is crazy and exhausting, but exhilarating and energizing all at the same time.

The boats they use in the races are long and narrow, low to the water. On Saturday when we went to see the beginning of the races, one of the boats had actually sunk, and the team was trying to get the boat back to the shore to get it emptied and floating again. The boats have teams of between 60 and 70 rowers, all dressed in fluorescent tee shirts with a matching or contrasting baseball cap. The men either sit or kneel along the sides of the boat and paddle together, much like crew. And like watching any crew team, or any spots team: when they are not competing, they are on the sidelines, fooling around, playing music, and dancing. One guy was using a big plastic bucket for a drum, and another team member was rapping through a megaphone while the rest of the team was dancing and having a grand old time. One of my friends from Project Abroad went in and joined them, and they thought it was crazy cool – it was hysterical and really kind of fun to connect in such a way with the locals.

In the evening, starting at about 6pm, there are fireworks and a boat parade on the river. The fireworks are good: they last almost a half an hour and all my favorite types made an appearance in the show. The boat parade consists of boats from different branches of the government, each with a different picture or design fashioned completely out of lights. Some of the boats have music, some have words, and some just have a picture. The boats continue to move up and down the river all night, and it is a calming, beautiful, majestic background that contrasts nicely with the more rambunctious celebrations on the banks of the river.

The atmosphere of the festival is just one big party, and just like any party, it is a good time while it lasts, and then after, it is nice to go back to the normalcy and routine of everyday life.