The Cambodian Water Festival--Photographs

Cambodian Water Festival--Photographs
10-12 November 2000

Click here for a history and description of the Water Festival

Click here for follow-up notes after the Water Festival

Boats racing on the Tonle Sap River The boat race is the most impressive feature of the annual Water Festival in Cambodia. The boats race along a one-kilometer course that ends near the juncture of the Tonle Sap River with the Mekong River in front of the royal palace.

A view of the race course from the top of a building A friend of a friend has a top-floor apartment with a patio that has a wonderful view of the waterfront and the main festival area. She had to work on the first day of the races but invited us to use her apartment for lunch and a spectacular view.

A rooftop patio overlooking the Phnom Penh waterfront This is the rooftop patio of our friend's apartment where we had lunch and then watched the goings-on of the festival. Part of our lunch-time discussion was how as white middle-class foreigners we could so readily enjoy such an opportunity while on the street below us were the thousands who had walked into Phnom Penh from the outlying provinces and were sleeping in the open during these days.

Traffic on the street This is the street immediately below the apartment patio where we ate lunch. Phnom Penh traffic is normally chaotic, but now with the city's population almost doubled by people coming in from the provinces for the festival, it becomes next to impossible to move in the streets. And this is early afternoon, long before the real crowds came at night time for the fireworks.

An double amputee in the festival crowd A small selling hats

A family with festival balloons Everyone comes out for the Water Festival, the double amputee (above left), probably a landmine victim, and the small children selling everything from food to hats to toys along the waterfront. And then there is the occasional middle-class family with enough money to buy balloons for their children.

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	The boat race is the most impressive feature of the annual Water Festival in Cambodia. The boats race along a one-kilometer course that ends near the juncture of the Tonle Sap River with the Mekong River in front of the royal palace.
	A friend of a friend has a top-floor apartment with a patio that has a wonderful view of the waterfront and the main festival area. She had to work on the first day of the races but invited us to use her apartment for lunch and a spectacular view.
	This is the rooftop patio of our friend's apartment where we had lunch and then watched the goings-on of the festival. Part of our lunch-time discussion was how as white middle-class foreigners we could so readily enjoy such an opportunity while on the street below us were the thousands who had walked into Phnom Penh from the outlying provinces and were sleeping in the open during these days.
	This is the street immediately below the apartment patio where we ate lunch. Phnom Penh traffic is normally chaotic, but now with the city's population almost doubled by people coming in from the provinces for the festival, it becomes next to impossible to move in the streets. And this is early afternoon, long before the real crowds came at night time for the fireworks.

	Everyone comes out for the Water Festival, the double amputee (above left), probably a landmine victim, and the small children selling everything from food to hats to toys along the waterfront. And then there is the occasional middle-class family with enough money to buy balloons for their children.