The Pixie Dust Chronicle: Pchum Ben and Oudong Mountain (w/ photos)

When I arrived, the bus was already packed. I had expected the outing to be for the CLA team, but discovered it to be for the students more so, and so many showed up that some of them -- mostly the kids I knew -- were kicked off the bus as the driver refused to go with that many people.

Everyone was dressed up -- oops!! -- the guys in white or light blue shirts and nice slacks, the girls in skirts and lovely white blouses, most with lace. Thankfully I had thought to wear a white shirt, but felt decidedly dressed down. Well, I didn't know.

Oudong Mountain is technically about an hour from Phnom Penh, but it took much longer, as everyone and their grandmother -- and I don't think I'm exaggerating -- was on the road and it was raining as we're getting pasted by a passing tropical storm.

However, eventually we got there. The sign at the entrance said, For Foreigner only, Admission 1 USD. I hunched down in my seat, and the bus went on. No foreigners here. These aren't the droids you're looking for...

Pchum Ben is one of the most important holidays here. It is a 15 day religious festival, culminating in Ancestor's Day at the end. During this time, Cambodians believe that the spirit world is much closer and the evil spirits are out and about. Because they have unprecedented access to the netherworld, they take the opportunity to make offerings for their more suspect dead relatives, to move them from the evil world to the good side of things, and to placate the evil spirits.

Either way it is a class A big deal, and the pagoda was literally crawling with people when we arrived. The offerings are everywhere, and a flurry of nuns and monks, most in white, scurried around sorting and organizing them. Set up here and there were sets of 4 monks, in orange, or nuns, in white, or both, in front of which people gathered to give their offerings. Our group, a sizeable number, squeezed in at one of these stations and brought forth the offerings.

Mostly, they are food - I had bought a premade packet at the market with some instant noodles, water, incense, and candles wrapped up nicely, then added some bread from the supermarket and some fruit. Many people had silver stacked things with food inside, and then everyone pitched in a few thousand riel. Once we gathered everything, the leader of the group handed them directly to the monk and I realized that the idea was that he touched everything, as sometimes she would just pick up something, he touched it, and then she put it back.

Also, as she was doing so, the others in the group reached out to touch her, as though the touch power of the monk was channeled through her. I thought that was cool, and joined in the circle. Once all the offerings had been officially received, the monks chanted a blessing. With that finished, we went to pray in front of the huge Buddha statue at the end of the hall, light incense, etc.

Once this was completed, and after checking around the complex, we decided to go up the mountain, as it was no longer raining. There, we discovered more people and an impromptu town of restaurants, but unlike anything I'd ever seen. They were just shelters, open and airy, with big alcoves, the floor covered in the straw carpets, and hammocks hung around. We settled in the alcoves and brought out the food -- apparently the silver things were filled with food.

At first I was sitting a bit aside, having the lunch I had brought, but then someone must have decided I looked lonely, because the group offered me their food and made sure I had my own container of rice. One guy, who I think the leader had asked to 'adopt me', kept coming over to make sure I was eating and was sharing the meat and soup.

Lunch finished, the guy, his friend, and I embarked on a mission to hike up to the top of the mission. We took the hard way, as I found out later, but ended up on a winding trail, passing all sorts of cool pagodas and little shrines, occasionally stopping for a blessing or to pray. The scenery from up top -- not THAT high, but certainly higher than most things around here -- was very beautiful, and along the way we chatted in the best way we could, with my very basic Khmer and his very basic English (he asked how many years I had been studying...and was quite surprised when I said two weeks!!!)

At the top pagoda, I bought a handful of lotus flowers, incense, and candles to lit in the small shrine there, and then we discovered the easy way down (though missing all those great little pagodas). There was a large group of monkeys chilling there, snatching lotus flowers from the hands of the terrified groups heading up. The things are mean -- I saw at least two baring their teeth, and as I said the one fat one snatching flowers straight from people's hands.

Once reunited with the group, most of whom had been exploring as well, it was time to rest -- very tired from the hike, I made use of the hammocks to take a break -- and eat fruit. Most of the students I knew had been victims of the bus overload, but some were still there and offered me bits of the fruits they were eating, which was cool.

Eventually we headed back, taking about a half hour just to get out of the parking lot, and it was a long bus ride back. I was tired from the 6:45 wake up and the hike, the heat, and etc, but the whole thing was really fascinating. One of the strangest things -- and coolest -- was that among the hundreds, maybe thousands of people there, I was essentially the only white person. I saw two others, in the restaurants. I did get some strange looks, but they could see that I was there to offer like everyone else, that I was in a group, and so there was no sense of hostility, just curiosity.

I'm glad I went. See below for some pics!