Description

Angkor-Seven Headed Serpent; 37 minutes; © 2020; The Water Festival in Phnom Penh is a major celebration in Cambodia inviting for a pleasant stroll through this great city whose history was not so gentle. The scars of the Khmer Rouge aberrant ruling are still present encased in the mass graves of the Killing Fields.

The Cambodian Water and Moon Festival named locally Bon Om Touk takes place once a year, on the full moon of the Buddhist month of Kadeuk, the 12th day of the Khmer Lunar Calendar that usually falls in November.

The festival traditionally celebrates the Seven-Headed snake, marking the reversal of the Tonlé Sap and the opening of the fishing season.
The legend mentions a lost tooth in the depths by the seven-headed serpent nāga whose daughter married a Buddhist Indian prince and established the kingdom of Cambodia.

According to the legend, when the naga was cremated, his tooth fell into the river down to his nāga kingdom.
The festival started to be celebrated in the time of the Angkorian King Jayavarman VII when a parade of the King’s Navy marked the beginning of the Cambodian fishing season.
And because all events in those times were religious, the festival was meant to keep the fluvial divinities happy ensuring a good harvest of rice for the coming year.
But other experts taking hints from the carved bas-reliefs of naval battles depicted on Bayon stated that the King’s navy parade was actually a preparation of the navy for battles.

Either explanation, the festival celebrates a major natural occurrence: the reversing flow between the Tonle Sap and the Mekong River.
For most of the year, Tonle Sap flows into the Mekong River.