Come on and Take a Free Ride

For Water Festival, we headed for the foreign visitors tent, much like last year. It was clearly much better-advertised than last year, however, as the tent was practically full of tour groups wearing matching shirts and the steps in front of the tent, which were empty last year, were packed with foreigners. I won't repeat the details of the boat races or the atmosphere - they were largely the same as our first trip to Bon Om Tuk.

Once the boat races ended, we were again treated to a wonderful display of "floats." Over a dozen boats were outfitted with the emblems of various Cambodian ministries in elaborate and hulking displays of light. After the sun set, the floats headed upriver as fireworks went off behind them. It is at this time of day that the Water Festival is at its busiest - most of the villages that flock to Phnom Penh have seen plenty of boats, but few have seen a true fireworks display or anything akin to the floats.

Attempting to get from the foreign visitors tent to streets that were not closed to traffic - probably about half a mile - was difficult to say the least. I have never been packed into a crowd so tight in my life. It was exactly the kind of situation that the Embassy or the State Department tells you to avoid when traveling to domestic situations - if a fight were to break out or somebody were to start pushing, several people would have easily been trampled. It was not until later that we realized that people were crowding so tightly to catch a glimpse of the King, who was about to make his way from the VIP tent on the riverfront back to the Royal Palace.

We managed to find our way to Street 184, usually closed to the public, between the Royal Palace and the National Museum. We walked briskly away from the waterfront along with throngs of others. About halfway to Norodom Boulevard, where the road blocks ended, a big black Lexus SUV came up behind us. Even though there are hundreds of such vehicles in Phnom Penh alone, I always try to peer inside to see if it is His Excellency. In this case, I didn't see His Excellency, but I did recognize his driver and handyman. As I waved, he pulled up along side us. What are the odds? Tens of thousands of people walking down the street, hundreds of VIP cars, and we manage to run into His Excellency?

Though the car was mostly full, we squeezed in - me and Shanti's parents in the back with His Excellency's incredibly elegant wife, His Excellency up front, and Shanti and an RCAF officer (a bodyguard for His Excellency?) in the trunk. Though it was a bit cramped, it was definitely the best option in terms of transport; there was certainly not to be any haggling with price gouging tuk-tuk drivers tonight.