LTO Cambodia: Funeral of Sihanouk: Day 4, cremation

Monday, February 4, 2013

Funeral of Sihanouk: Day 4, cremation

The pyre lit 20 minutes earlier, smoke emanates from Veal Preah Man.

Rest in Peace King Sihanouk.

Today, day 4 of King Father Norodom Sihanouk's funeral, was the day of the primary ceremony and the cremation. The ceremony was attended by family, friends, monks, government officials and foreign dignitaries. Dozens of journalists and photographers were in evidence. Most of the area was sealed off to the general public. The ceremony appeared to come off without a hitch, culminating in the lighting of the funeral pyre and smoke emanating from the crematorium, sometimes profusely. Afterward, there was another cannon salute, more fireworks, and the barricades keeping the public at bay were opened shortly thereafter. The Palace area was almost immediately filled with what I would estimate to be in the tens of thousands of people.

Hotels around Veal Preah Man were instructed to cover their windows to

prevent people from looking down on the area.

Mid-afternoon. Dignitaries and other attendees begin to arrive at Veal Preah Man.

The entire area around Veal Preah Man (Meru) and the Royal Palace was closed to the general public. Only those with passes, people that lived in the surrounding buildings, a smattering of tourists that happened to be staying at hotels within the area, and a fortunate few that somehow managed to finagle their way past the cordon were able to get close enough to Veal Preah Man to have a view of the proceedings. This small group of mourners sat in a small alley opposite the north gate of Veal Preah Man (Meru.)

Dozens of foreign dignitaries came to pay their respects, passing slowly

through the crematorium and exiting by the north door.

The honor gaurd's duty complete, they make their final retreat from the crematorium.

The King.

Smoke rises from the crematorium. 6:54PM.

Mourner at north gate of Veal Preah Man. The pyre lit and smoke rising.

Shortly after the cremation, I left Veal Preah Man, walked to the Palace area and then north up Sisowath Quay, all of which was still almost completely empty of people. At Street 154, thousands and thousands of people who had been kept away from the funeral area were waiting on the other side of a barricade. About 10 minutes later the police opened parts of the barricade and began to let people through...

Within 15 minute the Royal Palace area, including the riverfront park, the Palace park, Sisowath Quay and Sothearos Blvd in front of the Palace was filled with people, laying flowers at the Palace, trying to get a glimpse of Veal Preah Man and the rising smoke, sitting in the parks and street watching a replay of the funeral proceedings on the giant TV mounted on the face of the Palace...

Watching the big TV

No comments:

Post a Comment

Cambodia

Cambodia is Srok Khmer, the 'Land of the Khmer,' the primary ethnic group in the area since at least the Neolithic and an Indian influenced civilization with origins near 2000 years old. Centered on the lower Mekong and tributaries the Khmer people have dominated the region for millennia. From 2nd century AD Khmer kingdoms rose and fell, culminating in unification and the 500 year reign of the Angkorian Empire, the builders of the temples of Angkor near Siem Reap. The Empire stretched from Burma to the ocean. But by the 1400s Cambodia fell to centuries of change and decline squeezed between the expanding Siam and Vietnam. Colonized and by the French in the 1860s, independence 90 years later in 1954, a brief post-colonial 'golden period' under Sihanouk, coup in 70, civil war, fall to the communist Khmer Rouge in 75, 3 years 8 months 20 days of madness, Vietnamese rescue in 1979, occupation, low level war and international sanctions in the 80s, the UN, ostensive democracy and an adventure party destination in the 90s and now mainstreaming, tourism, rapid development, rapacious capitalism and NGOs, missionaries and other international busybodies aplenty.

Southeast Asia

As the term implies, Southeast Asia encompasses the southeastern corner of the Asian continent, loosely speaking, the area between India, China and Australia. It is made up of two distinct regions: the mainland zone, a bulbous peninsula jutting into the Pacific Ocean, bounded by China to the north and India to the west; and the insular (island) zone in the Pacific Ocean. The name 'Southeast Asia' is a comparatively recent invention, first coming into use into the 20th century and still a bit indefinite in definition. Mainland Southeast Asia is generally considered to include Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and peninsular Malaysia. The mainland is sometimes referred to as Indo-China though Indochina (Indochine) also designates the 19th/20th century French colonial conglomerate of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Sitting south of the Tropic of Cancer, most of mainland Southeast Asia lies in the hot, humid tropics and sub-tropics with a climate dominated by a monsoon cycle which divides the year into two distinct seasons: a dry season and an extremely wet monsoon season. Much of the mainland is mountainous and thickly jungled, with large river systems and wide, low-lying, flood-prone plains, much of which is, in modern times, deforested and blanketed with geometrical rice paddies. Several major river valleys including the Mekong River, the Red, Ma and Ka rivers and the group of rivers draining to the Chao Praya Delta played host to the rise of early civilization in the area. The Mekong River is one of the world's greatest rivers, the seventh largest on the planet, and since pre-history has been closely associated with the land of the Khmer.