The Mekong Tides a' Turning
on Sarah G in Cambodia (Cambodia), 25/Nov/2008 00:09, 34 days ago
The Cambodian National Boat Race has the same prominence in Cambodia as our FA cup final. Two million people descend on Phnom Penh, its broadcast on national telly, the king’s there…just minimal fuss!? Taking place at the time of the full moon, its the ancient celebration of the end of the wet season and the phenomenon of the Mekong river changing the direction of its flow. In wet season the Mekong expands meaning it flows ‘backwards’ but then in November whenin stop raining the river changes its direction of flow.VSO’s endeavour to integrate into local culture is taken to the extreme or somemight say ridiculous - as boat full of brangs is the equivalent of Khmer people rocking up to do the Tour de France on a‘Cambodian’ bicycle - rusty, sporting a little basket on the front and not a gear in sight.So, I know people who row, and I have seen rowing, granted only on the TV but seemily that qualified me for the team and I took up oars for our first (and only) practice session. Although my main concern should have been speed and timing I was much more troubled with the amount of river water going into my mouth which meant regular paddle breaks, however I didn’t feel too bad as only half the boat seemed to be paddling at one time. But after lunch, a pep talk from captain Bas and some motivational dancing and whistle blowing from our Khmer skipper (you know, the small guy at the front…) we managed what we thought were some pretty good times…Last year VSO came 5th. That is 5th in the looses sense of the word as there are only 2 boats in each heat; so essentially we were‘only’ beaten by the winner of the race 2 behind us. Our aim was 4th…Race day came and as promised to captain Bas we were hangover free, after dishing out our lovely pink t-shirts were travelled in style (Cambodian style - the back of 2 pick ups) to find our boat. We found it and our challengers the red team, found us, they weren’t really looking too worried!The race takes place downstream so the first challenge is paddling upstream. I am not sure if it was the fact we looked completely incompetent of they just wanted a close look at the competition that lead our red challenges to hold on to our boat and assist in our upstream paddle.At the start of the race the atmosphere was fantastic, somehow over 400 boats were in order ready to paddle crazily down stream in their heat. Our boat caused several double takes (we were the only other boat that contained women never mind the fact we were barangs) but this was normally followed by smiles and cheers and we enjoyed the attention. This turned to slight apprehension after a boat about 5 heats before us sunk, but hey we had practiced, what could possibly go wrong!Nothing did, the reds were half a length in front of us before we had even realised the race had started, and there is debate in the VSO ranks about if we came 4th or 5th but it’s the taking part that counts - we had made it and I hadn’t even got that much water in my mouth!Three fantastic days of water festival followed - the river comes alive with millions of people, food stalls, fireworks and flotillas of brightly-lit boats and there is an electric atmosphere as the full moon rises over the capital...The photos are at www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=42427&l=003f2&id=509349727