Feats of Glory: Part I, Water Festival

* Acknowledgment: All photos but the one of Banteay Chhmar are compliments of awesome Peace Corps Volunteer Keiko Valente. Thanks Keiko!

In the past two months I’ve competed in two official races – one on water and one on land. I lost both races, but I had fun while gaining new experiences, and that’s more important than fame, fortune and glory, right? (Don’t answer that question.)

The first race was by sea, and was in honor of Water Festival, the annual Cambodian celebration marking the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the twice-annual magical and mysterious reversal of the flow of the Tonle Sap River. Tonle Sap means “Great Lake,” but it’s a river, too!

 

For the momentous occasion, seven friends and I (most of us fellow Peace Corps volunteers) joined several boatloads of oarsmen in races down and back a section of the moat surrounding Banteay Chhmar.

An ancient temple no one knows much about, Banteay Chhmar is in a town of the same name. Chhmar means cat, so my students call the temple and town Banteay Meow. Banteay means fortress. Put the two together and what do you get? Cat Fortress! Terrifying.

In the waters of the Cat Fortress our team —Che Piasa Khmer (meaning “We can speak Khmer”) — twice rowed our hearts out (thankfully not literally) , but the only glory we achieved was the glory of ridicule, and that’s not very glorious.

The announcer’s phrase of the day was “Kenny no win.” Unfortunately, Kenny was in our boat. But Kenny wasn’t to be blamed for our failures. As our boat’s only Banteay Chhmar resident, Kenny was simply the only name the announcer knew.

All eight of us were to be blamed for our losses in the two-boat races. We were paired up with, and lost to, the same team both times — another do-good organization in the form of a French orphanage. 

Although Che Piasa Khmer crossed the finish line second, and therefore last, we were successful in other aspects of the race. We didn’t tip, we didn’t sink and we did cross that finish line. Pretty good for a crew of virgin Water Festival rowers.

My last, and as far as I can remember, only rowing experience was last April in a kayak in Laos. I didn’t emerge from that kayak feeling confident about future rowing endeavors. During that expedition our guide first told that I didn’t know how to paddle, and then kicked me out of the kayak. 

My Banteay Chhmar watery competition was more personally successful. I was again told that I didn’t know how to paddle — by our steerer, who told me that I was folding in my arms like a dinosaur when I should be extending them to their full gorilla length. A former white water rafting guide, our steerer knew what he was talking about. But at least this time I wasn’t kicked out of the boat. Success!

Che Piasa Khmer celebrated our success by touring the great cat fortress, or Banteay Chhmar temple, which is now more ruins than temple.

That evening we risked our lives once more, but this time above the sea and ground, in cages of death more commonly known as Ferris wheels. Despite the creaks and groans of the ancient wheel, we didn’t die, and basked in our survival by watching people try to punch and kick each other to death. This is more commonly called kick boxing.

Neither of the boxers was successful in his death mission, but a mob of bugs almost wiped out both contenders.

Yes, the match was effectively halted by insects — flying specks which clogged the air as they partied around the fluorescent overhead lights. The bug problem wasn’t addressed until some of the flying specks attacked a boxer’s eye.

Bug exterminators were called into the ring. Their killing method? Not the usual poisonous sprays, but tape. You know, the clear sticky stuff you use to wrap presents, not the stuff you usually use to kill bugs.

During the course of the match (or at least the portion we were patient enough to sit through), the exterminators affixed and re-affixed long streamers of tape to the upper bars of the ring near the fluorescent lights.

The clear strips soon turned black with the carcasses of dead insects. But the tape wasn’t strong enough to defeat the boxing-loving bugs. 

The winged marauders continued soaring toward the holy lights and congregating in a thick mass around the boxers’ heads.

Laughable at first, the battle of the bugs soon became ridiculous and stale, and we left. (Or at least most of us left, including me and the other non-die-hard boxing fans.)

Water Festival weekend ended with a trip to the Cambodia’s northern land of scrumptious Western food: Siem Reap.

I am fortunate that my Water Festival was filled with merry making. Not so fortunate were the nearly 400 people killed and the more than 800 injured in the stampede on a Phnom Penh bridge. Cambodia's prime minister is calling the tragedy Cambodia’s worst since the mass murders inflicted by the Khmer Rouge. Donating to Sihanouk Hospital of Hope (SHCH) is a good way to help these victims. SHCH provides free medical care to Cambodia’s poor and needy. To make a donation, go to www.care4cambodia.org and click on “Give a One Time Gift.” Make sure to mark “Relief” in the notes section.