usinthekingdom: September 2013

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Old Pepsi Factory

Battambang province, Cambodia - September 3, 2012 - I noticed when I was out crochunting that the abandoned (and now demolished) Pepsi factory has been, well... simply demolished. So these are the photos I got of it last year in tribute.

Pchum Ben - Wat Samraong Knong and Wat Gaio

Battambang province, Cambodia - September 24, 2013 - Pchum Ben is a Cambodian Buddhist festival that lasts for 15 days, and is intended to pay respects to the ghosts of the last seven generations. The monks are given a lot of food during the day, as they must stay up all night chanting, in order to open the gates of hell, at which time some of those in purgatory will be released from their trials, and other ghosts will be given time to wander before returning to further punishment. Pchum Ben generally honors all dead relatives, but the focus on the opening of hell is prominent. It's an eerie and interesting time, when everybody goes to the wat (pagoda). So that's what we did.

This is one of the buildings in the Wat Samraong Knorng complex.

This is another. Inside monks, most of them children, are eating down plates of meat, fish, chicken and pork.

The oldest building in the complex is in ruins and it's over a hundred years old.

Behind the complex is a macabre shrine dedicated to the 10, 000 lives taken at a nearby killing field in 1979.

The reliefs depict gruesome murders and tortures.

Imprisoned children.

Small girls murdering with bayonets.

And other visions of Hell.

My landlord's village was near this pagoda, and he told me in 1978, they'd put a bunch of people in a pit still alive and then thrown hand grenades into the pit. Everyone was killed, and my landlord, along with other children and people ran to look at the aftermath.

The children "shave rocks" in water to make them into a dull red paint.

Mysterious fruit.

More of those grapefruits..

These are long beans. They taste exactly like green beans, but they're longer.

Fish drying in the rain.

Betel nuts are so gross.

Never do the next thing I did, which was eat it.

Behind the doors of Wat Gaio the monks sleep during the daytime, to prepare for a night of rigorous chanting and meditation.

Pchum Ben is a really interesting festival that, unlike other festivals of the region, only happens in Cambodia! This year it runs from September 19 to October 4, so it's not over yet...