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Oudong Cambodia, Cambodia

Today we went to Oudong, which was the capitol of Cambodia for about 250 years. At this site, on a small mountain called Phnom Oudong, there is a monument that apparently contains the cremated remains of centuries of Cambodian royalty. The city was founded by King Srei Soryapor in 1601. Oudong is a little over 20 miles from Phnom Penh, the current capitol of Cambodia.

While in Oudong we went to the Vipassana Dhura Buddhist monastery, the largest in Cambodia. It is a huge complex and serves as a Buddhist educational center. We went into the temple for a Buddhist blessing ceremony. In most of Cambodia they practice Theravada Buddhism. We were told that this form of Buddhism is more conservative and has stricter doctrine than some other forms of Buddhism. The monks chanted for a while (wasn’t in Khmer, but I didn’t catch the name of the language) and then tossed flowers on us while we sat on the floor. We had to be sure that our feet did not face the monks as that is considered rude. Also, as we were in a temple, we had to have our shoulders and knees covered, similar to many cathedrals in Europe.

After the ceremony, we went to another building in the complex and helped serve rice to the Monks. The Buddhist nuns had prepared everything and gave us bowls of rice. We gave a spoonful to each monk as they passed down the line. I’m sure there was some ceremonial importance, but it seemed amusing to me that we didn’t just give each monk one of the full bowls of rice we were holding.

From there we went to a village called Kampong Tralach. There we went on ox cart rides. All of the oxen were skin and bones…I’m hoping they fill out during the rainy season. We had a long procession of ox carts. Local kids crowded around trying to get money for flowers and leaves that they had folded into various objects. We also had some very small children in houses along the way who were very exited and ran out to watch all of the ox carts go by.

After lunch the boat made its way to Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. We took a crazy tuk-tuk ride through the city traffic. We have found that most non-western/first world cities have a different type of insane driving and Phnom Penh is no different. It reminded us of Nairobi with solid traffic, few if any traffic signals, constant weaving in an out of “lanes,” and drivers pulling out in front of oncoming traffic constantly. We got to see a snippet of the city and go to Independence Park. It’s definitely a growing city that is becoming more modern. They are building a number of high-rise buildings, but most of the city is under 5 floors. We will spend all of tomorrow in Phnom Penh, so this was just a quick look.

Before dinner, AMA brought in local young performers to play music and do traditional dance. After dinner we went to go out to the night market, but it turns out that there’s a thunderstorm right now. We decided to stay in for now.

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