Khmer New Year

This would have been a great picture if I hadn't taken the head off 1 of the monks but I thought I'd blip it anyway as it does sum up the atmosphere of the moment! Next week is Khmer New Year probably the most significant holiday in the Cambodian calender. Everyone leaves the cities and travels to their home towns. A lot of eating ,drinking and making merry goes on.As with most of the many holidays here the week before is always spent preparing for it and the week after recovering from it.As I cycled home today I noticed most of the houses had buckets of water with flower petals sprinkled on top outside. There were incense sticks burning and plates of food and money close by. This could only mean one thing and that was that the monks were coming!I stood outside with my landlady and watched as a trailer with several elderly chanting monks drove slowly by. The young monks who were walking alongside blessed the water in the buckets and then sprinkled some over the homeowners heads in exchange for the food and money.For some reason that I cannot understand they absolutely soaked my landlady. I think she was asking them to. I don't know if she was hoping for extra extra good fortune in the coming year - she is not a well lady or if she was needing a lot of forgiveness -she does upset people or if she was just being extra obliging to me trying to get a good photo!After the monks had gone the family came up and sprinkled the rest of the water all over the house presumably to bring good luck to us all