Khmer Festivals

Traditionally, the Khmer celebrate their holidays and festivals year round. The most widely celebrated festivals are Khmer New Year, Pchum Ben, and Water Festival.

Khmer New Year
The Khmer New Year takes place from April 13-15 during the dry season, when farmers do not work in the fields. Astrologers determine the actual time and date by calculating the exact moment when the new animal protector (tiger, dragon, or snake, for example) arrives. The Khmer in Cambodia spend the entire month in preparation for the celebration, cleaning and decorating their houses with candles, lights, star-shaped lanterns, and flowers. During the first three days of the lunar year, celebrants travel to the pagodas to offer food to the monks. They pray for prosperity, good health, and show appreciation to their parents and elders. They make resolutions, pay debts and exchange gifts. Among the many communal experiences of Khmer New Year are participation in music-making, dancing, and games.



Pchum Ben
Pchum Ben is a religious ceremony in September which recalls the spirits of deceased relatives. For fifteen days, people in Khmer villages take turns bringing food to pagodas. On the fifteenth and final day, everyone dresses in their finest clothes to travel together to the pagodas. Families bring overflowing baskets of food and children offer helpings of the delicacies to the monks. All offer prayers to release the ancestor from sin and to allow them to pass on to a better life. According to Khmer belief, those who do not follow the practices of Pchum Ben receive curse from their angry ancestors.

Water Festival
Water Festival in Cambodia takes place each year in October or November, at the time of the full moon, and is the most extravagant and exuberant festival in the Khmer calendar, outdoing even the new year celebrations. Up to a million people from all walks of life and from all over the country flock to the banks of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers in Phnom Penh to watch traditional boats racing on a huge scale. The boat racing dates back to ancient times marking the strength of the powerful Khmer marine forces during the Khmer empire. During the day, the boats race in pairs along a kilometer-long course, and then in the evening brightly decorated floats cruise along the river prior to and during the nightly fireworks displays.

The festival marks the changing of the flow of the Tonle Sap River and is also seen as thanksgiving to the Mekong River for providing the country with fertile land and abundant fish. It is at this time when the river flow reverts to its normal down-stream direction. In a remarkable phenomenon, the Tonle Sap River earlier reverses its course as the rainy season progresses, with the river flowing "upstream" to Tonle Sap Lake. Then as the rainy season tapers off, the river changes direction once again as the swollen Tonle Sap Lake begins to empty back into the Mekong River, leaving behind vast quantities of fish.