Angkor: Seven Headed Serpent

From the temples lost in the Cambodian jungle I decided to switch to the water festival in Cambodia’s capital. And the best way to get there is with the express boat over the Tonle Sap, a body of water on a whimsical river that changes its flow direction during the year. The village of Phanom Krung is the first contact with the river that represented the livelihood of people for many years. Houses on stilts, families preparing breakfast while the men were out to fish. Most of the floating villages are populated by Cham or Vietnamese who were pushed out from the land during the Khmer Rouge rule. ... The Cambodian Water and Moon Festival named locally Bon Om Touk, takes place once a year, on the full moon of the Buddhist month of Kadeuk, the 12th day of the Khmer Lunar Calendar that usually falls in November. The festival traditionally celebrates the Seven-Headed snake, marking the reversal of the Tonlé Sap and the opening of the fishing season. The legend mentions a lost tooth in the depths by the seven headed serpent n?ga whose daughter married a Buddhist Indian prince and established the kingdom of Cambodia. According to the legend, when the naga was cremated, his tooth fell into the river down to his n?ga kingdom. .... The Khmer Rouge’s rule of Cambodia represents the most ruthless and radical occupation by any communist regime of a country. Its goal was to transform swiftly Cambodia in a peasant dominated agrarian society, a utopic community inspired by Maoist China who sponsored for many years the leadership of the Khmer Rouge. Khmer Rouge entered the capital Phnom Penh after fighting for many years a right wing regime who took over the country years ago in the mid of the American war in Vietnam that spread in time in Cambodia. The date of the fall of Phnom Penh was 17 April 1975 and the length of the Khmer Rouge occupation can be recited by anybody in a still traumatized country: 3 years, 8 months and 20 days.