All I can do is SMH, its still so unthinkable that whole event. Hard to even imagine. So sad and so unnecessary.horace wrote:No.
Water Festival - should I stay or should I go?
- RickyBobby
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Dear Lord Baby Jesus, Lyin in a Manger.
- violet
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horace wrote:Speak in words at least understood by those over 25 would help! SMH?
Smack my head
Or mabe, but not
Sunday morning herald
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch
- Plutarch
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'Shaking my head', but I have also seen people use that for 'so much hate'.horace wrote:Speak in words at least understood by those over 25 would help! SMH?
Dear Lord Baby Jesus, Lyin in a Manger.
- Lucky Lucan
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The Water Festival is easily manageable nowadays. This thread was started in 2010, before the tragedy on the bridge. The festival was an awe-inspiring event in the years 2005-2010. Peaceman used to call it an epic of biblical proportions. There were insane amounts of people crammed into the city. They were mostly rural people, and let's just say they were mostly the types that would stand on the left side of a Tube escalator. Many just wandered around endlessly in giant crowds or slept in impromptu camps or under plastic sheets in the parks. The security was a bit lax, I hung out at the 2008 with a bunch of let's say "security", and we drank Budweiser all day, nobody seemed too interested in doing their job.
So the disaster changed everything. I was down in that area the night before, we drove down in a pick-up and parked near the Russian Embassy. We walked past Sambo who still lived in the field behind the Australian Embassy. Koh Pich had only just been developed so was a new place for people to see. It didn't seem like anything unusual so I was pretty shocked to hear what happened the next evening. There was no festival for a few years, then some very tame efforts without boats because of the floods etc.
Last year was the first time I saw a decent attendance since 2010. It's a much more organized event now, the whole nature of it has changed. It's no longer viable for your average bumpkin to roll up in the capital off a coach with 20,000 Riel to last them the next three days while they walk around or doss in corners. It's just too expensive and you can't sleep in the parks anymore. So it seems the festival has a slightly different demographic, and (luckily)there just aren't the kind of crowds around there used to be. The security presence is something in recent years. There were loads of checkpoints manned by Gendarmerie/ Flying Tiger Police and then these heavy-looking squads of Gendarmes wearing tons of tactical stuff marching around. Then there were the goons in suits. Thousands of them in black suits with earpieces. They had lanyards with their ID/ units etc but I generally avoid spooky people, especially when I'm with my kid!
It's easy enough to get around, I'll be there tomorrow with some friends in the daytime. I'll be out of there well before dark though. It's not so much dangerous as just a pain in the ass to navigate when too many people decide it's time to go. I think the festival gets a lot of bad press but it has changed and is worth a bash. Enjoy yourselves whatever you do.
So the disaster changed everything. I was down in that area the night before, we drove down in a pick-up and parked near the Russian Embassy. We walked past Sambo who still lived in the field behind the Australian Embassy. Koh Pich had only just been developed so was a new place for people to see. It didn't seem like anything unusual so I was pretty shocked to hear what happened the next evening. There was no festival for a few years, then some very tame efforts without boats because of the floods etc.
Last year was the first time I saw a decent attendance since 2010. It's a much more organized event now, the whole nature of it has changed. It's no longer viable for your average bumpkin to roll up in the capital off a coach with 20,000 Riel to last them the next three days while they walk around or doss in corners. It's just too expensive and you can't sleep in the parks anymore. So it seems the festival has a slightly different demographic, and (luckily)there just aren't the kind of crowds around there used to be. The security presence is something in recent years. There were loads of checkpoints manned by Gendarmerie/ Flying Tiger Police and then these heavy-looking squads of Gendarmes wearing tons of tactical stuff marching around. Then there were the goons in suits. Thousands of them in black suits with earpieces. They had lanyards with their ID/ units etc but I generally avoid spooky people, especially when I'm with my kid!
It's easy enough to get around, I'll be there tomorrow with some friends in the daytime. I'll be out of there well before dark though. It's not so much dangerous as just a pain in the ass to navigate when too many people decide it's time to go. I think the festival gets a lot of bad press but it has changed and is worth a bash. Enjoy yourselves whatever you do.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
- RickyBobby
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Thanks for your reporting. How was your day?Lucky Lucan wrote:The Water Festival is easily manageable nowadays. This thread was started in 2010, before the tragedy on the bridge. The festival was an awe-inspiring event in the years 2005-2010. Peaceman used to call it an epic of biblical proportions. There were insane amounts of people crammed into the city. They were mostly rural people, and let's just say they were mostly the types that would stand on the left side of a Tube escalator. Many just wandered around endlessly in giant crowds or slept in impromptu camps or under plastic sheets in the parks. The security was a bit lax, I hung out at the 2008 with a bunch of let's say "security", and we drank Budweiser all day, nobody seemed too interested in doing their job.
So the disaster changed everything. I was down in that area the night before, we drove down in a pick-up and parked near the Russian Embassy. We walked past Sambo who still lived in the field behind the Australian Embassy. Koh Pich had only just been developed so was a new place for people to see. It didn't seem like anything unusual so I was pretty shocked to hear what happened the next evening. There was no festival for a few years, then some very tame efforts without boats because of the floods etc.
Last year was the first time I saw a decent attendance since 2010. It's a much more organized event now, the whole nature of it has changed. It's no longer viable for your average bumpkin to roll up in the capital off a coach with 20,000 Riel to last them the next three days while they walk around or doss in corners. It's just too expensive and you can't sleep in the parks anymore. So it seems the festival has a slightly different demographic, and (luckily)there just aren't the kind of crowds around there used to be. The security presence is something in recent years. There were loads of checkpoints manned by Gendarmerie/ Flying Tiger Police and then these heavy-looking squads of Gendarmes wearing tons of tactical stuff marching around. Then there were the goons in suits. Thousands of them in black suits with earpieces. They had lanyards with their ID/ units etc but I generally avoid spooky people, especially when I'm with my kid!
It's easy enough to get around, I'll be there tomorrow with some friends in the daytime. I'll be out of there well before dark though. It's not so much dangerous as just a pain in the ass to navigate when too many people decide it's time to go. I think the festival gets a lot of bad press but it has changed and is worth a bash. Enjoy yourselves whatever you do.
Dear Lord Baby Jesus, Lyin in a Manger.
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Fine. I felt I should go down and have at least a short visit. I did that and it was all good.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Reports seem to be that it was pretty mild here. More locals left than usual (my tuktuk driver drove to Kep, as SHV "is too full of Chinese"), and not as many came in. No trash shoveled in the river and other than loud concerts and the races, pretty tame.
Oh yea, that world's longest dragon boat is currently on display behind the FCC still.
Oh yea, that world's longest dragon boat is currently on display behind the FCC still.
- Lucky Lucan
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I went down again on the Friday with a bunch friends and our kids. There was a decent view of the quays from one of those balcony bars opposite FCC. It was much busier than Wednesday but not so bad. We watched the fireworks from the street and then wandered up through a major exodus going away from the river towards Norodom to get a taxi. It wasn't such a big deal, the crowds in 2005-2010 were much more vast and it was scary in the middle of them, I wouldn't have brought a kid in too close to the main crowds then. Hit the boonies on Sunday and that was very pleasant.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
I was back to Europe for just those 3 days and most of my in-laws decided to go to their country side home and returned on Saturday. More of a Khmer NY happening for them, then a city festival.
Yes, this year more than in years past it seemed that local Phnom Penh Khmers escaped to the family countryside homes. I wonder if it was just because it fell perfectly on Wed-Fri, or a sign of the times.v12 wrote:I was back to Europe for just those 3 days and most of my in-laws decided to go to their country side home and returned on Saturday. More of a Khmer NY happening for them, then a city festival.
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