Water Festival and ASEAN Tourism Boat Races

Cambodia will celebrate Water Festival and Boat racing from 23 - 25 November 2007 in Phnom Penh City infront of Royal Palace. There will be participating of boats from ASEAN member countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Indonesia.

The water festival had background for so long time. The water festival ceremony is the army training to do attest of the army for preparing to do a battle. In the history, Khmer King always does the battle with enemies by sailing. So he prepares this water festival ceremony every year to choose Champion of sailing battle, as in Bayon Temple, Batteay Chhmar in the Preah Bat Jayvarman VII. We had seen a lot of statues about sailing battle under leading of Jayvarman VII. The custom of this is to have from then up to the present. On the other hand the water is celebrated every years in November to honor the victory of Cambodian Naval forces in the reign of King JayvarmanVII, during Angkor period of the 12th century. And this ceremony is to history about military exercise of our navy force in the course of national defense and to express thanks to the 3 Buddhist symbols Gods and holy thing which helped us and agriculture field and serves as an opportunity to pray for our lord for the happiness and sufficient rain for rice cultivation.

The Ministry of Tourism will arrange complimentary-seated pavilion for foreign visitors during the Cambodian Water Festival and ASEAN Tourism Boat Races.