How Cambodian Water Festival Varies

Sunday morning when I googled Water Festival Cambodia, google fetched me fabulous pictures of boats, lights, floats, and fireworks. Today I made the same search. Along with the former photos were new pictures from Monday night and the stampede off Diamond Island. If I had written about Water Festival on Monday, this post would look different. It's Wednesday and given that around 375 people died and an estimated 750 were injured, I don't know exactly what to write.

Water Festival is one of the biggest holidays on the Cambodian holiday. Some suggest it's even bigger then Cambodian New Year or Chinese New Year (no one cares about the January 1st new year). Water Fest is a lunar based three-day holiday marking the Makong and Bassac Rivers reversed flow after the end of the rainy season. Over 2 million people converge on Phnom Penh from the provinces to watch the boat racing on the Phnom Penh rivers. The visitors camp out along the river, setting up mosquito nets and makeshift camps along the river front. Cambodians aren't exactly competitive people so Water Fest isn't really about the racing. It's about the makeshift markets along the river with deep discount and bargains on everything from tires to fruit. It's about the fireworks and nighttime floats with lights. It's about three days off from work. It's about spending time and eating with family and friends.

Phnom Penh residents and expats try to leave the city. It's congested and packed

and the river front area is blocked off from cars and motos so the crowds can flow better. Some of my coworkers left the city and the rest of us filled out time cooking, relaxing and "interneting."

I did make it down to the river front Sunday night. It was amazing! The high energy, the packed crowds, the sales and deals, the lit-up floats each representing a governmental office and looking very much like Disneyland, the 30 minute long exquisite firework display, the fountains with music and lights, the concerts in front of Independence Monument, and then trying to stay together with my coworker and her Cambodian sisters. It was like a rock concert meet 4th of July meets an amusement park. Several hours later I was tired of people shoving against me, but it was one of those overseas experience you slightly loathe but absolutely have to do once. Getting home we got stuck in traffic for over two hours. The crowds even then worried me. So Tuesday morning, sadly I wasn't completely surprised even though the scale was horrifyingly large.

No one knows what happened on Monday night. Diamond Island is Phnom Penh's newest hottest destination. You haven't been to Phnom Penh until you've been to Diamond Island. It was built on Bassac River silt several years ago and is accessed via two narrow bridges. At night, the bridges are decked out Vegas-style in massive multicolored lights, one of them even has a giant gold swan protruding upwards, longer then the actual length of the bridge. Too many people on Diamond Island, too many people on a bridge that's really only 30 feet-wide, too many lights that don't meet safety code...it didn't end well.

So that was Water Festival. It's a massive high energy festival. And it was also the lowest point in decades for national morale. I'm glad I experienced the good parts! And next year, I'll take my four day weekend and head out of town. What will Water Fest look like next year? No one knows.