In Cambodia, Khmer New Year is the greatest traditional festival. and also it is the greatest national holiday because it has three days of festival. This year is the Year of Dog starting from on April 14 to 16, 2006.

The first day, of New Year, called “Moha Sangran”, begins at 06:48 on April 14th

Before Year Angle comes to take care of he world for one year period, people, traditionally, prepare and decorate their house with colorful lights and varied of flowers such as lotus and colored flowers, different kinds of fruits and other scared objects to welcome New Year that replace with the precious.

During 3 days of Khmer New Year festival, it is great time for boys and girls to play traditional game together at the temples or any fields or playgrounds in their villages or temples. The traditional games as “Bos Angkugn” (a game played by two groups of boys and girls), “Chol Chhoung” (a game played especially on the first nightfall of the Khmer New Year by two groups of boys and girls), ” Leak Kanseng” (a game played by a group of children sitting in the circle. Some one holding a ” Kanseng” twisted into a round shape walks around the circle while singing a song) and so on. The most popular dance was still the ” Roam Vong”. Although they performed other folklore and popular dances dat in and day out and sometimes into the wee hours of the nights as well.

The second day is called as Wanabot, which means day of offering gifts to the parents, grandparents and elders. Usually, Khmer people like to share gifts or presents to employees and also danate money or clothes to poor people. In the evening, people go to temple to build a mountain of sand and ask the monks to give them a blessing of happiness and peace.

The third day is called as day of “Leung Sakk”, that means the year starts to be counted up from this year. Traditionally, in the morning, we used to go to the temple to perform the ceremony of the mountain of sand to get blessed. In the evening, to complete the New Year festival, our Khmer people need to perform the last ceremony, called as “Pithi Srang Preah”, which means giving a special bath or a special shower to Buddha status, the monks, elders, parents, grandparents to apologize for any mistake we have done to them and to gratify them. Every one must have a wonderful time during this ceremony because it is a great opportunity for every one, young and old, man and woman to have much funby spreading out water to each other.

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