Crowds collect for Cambodia’s annual water pageant, showcasing thrilling dragon boat races and vibrant festivities

Tens of hundreds of spectators thronged the riverfront within the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh Sunday for an annual dragon boat race — the centrepiece of the dominion’s three-day water pageant, cancelled in the course of the Covid pandemic. Round 300 boats, their crews wearing matching vivid T-shirts, strained for the win as they dipped their vibrant paddles into the Tonle Sap river with the royal palace behind them. Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, Prime Minister Hun Manet, his father Hun Sen and senior authorities officers appeared on because the yearly extravaganza started, with crowds urging the canoes over the ultimate line.

Live shows, parades of lantern floats bedecked with vibrant neon lights — every representing a authorities ministry — and fireworks are all a part of the three-day pageant that may final till Tuesday. “I’m blissful that we will meet to rejoice the water pageant,” 38-year-old rower Hom Phos advised AFP. “I’m so excited as a result of it’s our nationwide pageant.” The pageant was final held in 2019, after which it was halted in the course of the pandemic.

“Through the Covid pandemic, everybody was frightened about it, and we weren’t blissful. However now we’re blissful once more,” fellow rower Yorn Vorn, 45, advised AFP. The pageant marks the top of the wet season when the Tonle Sap river, which joins the mighty Mekong River in entrance of the Royal Palace, reverses circulate. Well being authorities are additionally anticipated to distribute 80,000 condoms and 20,000 packages of lubricants at no cost to oarsmen and guests in the course of the pageant to boost consciousness about HIV and AIDS prevention.

The celebrations turned lethal on the final day of the pageant in 2010, when greater than 350 individuals have been killed in a stampede on an overcrowded bridge after panic unfold over rumours it was about to break down. Then Prime Minister Hun Sen described the catastrophe as Cambodia’s worst tragedy for the reason that Khmer Rouge’s 1975-1979 reign of terror, which killed as much as 1 / 4 of the inhabitants.