Leaving the War Museum, Amethyst and Sapphire headed towards the Cambodian Cultural Village, a cross between a theme park and a visual, 3-dimensional, living museum. At the entrance they paid for their tickets and audio headsets. All the museum exhibits and most of the locations in the village have related audio clips providing an insight into the history and relevance to Cambodian culture.
Covering a huge area, the Cambodian Cultural Village contains a waxwork museum, a historical relic museum, authentic replica villages of the various peoples and cultures of the Cambodian population, theaters where important traditional ceremonies, traditional dances and historical plays are enacted. Other attractions are a picturesque garden patterned with winding walkways and miniature models of famous historical buildings and structures, and numerous statues and sculptures highlighting the diverse, yet somehow cohesive, cultural heritage of Cambodia.
Wax Museum
The Waxwork museum exhibits the famous Cambodian historical people from the first century up to the present in exquisite detail.
Miniature Historical Buildings
Authentic replica Floating Village on the bank of the Tonle Sap Lake
Walking along the broad pathways threading through this extensive creation, the two were struck by the rather deserted and empty park. It was clearly not “tourist in-season”. One could imagine throngs of visitors filling the walkways and strolling from one exhibit to another. On this day, however, Amethyst and Sapphire seemed to be quite alone in their exploring. The calm peacefulness that pervaded the tree-lined and leafy avenues was a welcome feeling after experiencing the War Museum.
They were just in time for the performance of a traditional Khmer Wedding Ceremony at one of the theaters, the Millionaire House. This impressive yet basic structure is built in an ancient Khmer construction style and completely from wooden materials.
The two entered the theater, joining a number of other visitors. They watched entranced as the traditionally dressed and colourful wedding party made their way slowly into the theater and up on to the stage area in front of them. Accompanied by music played on traditional instruments the bride, groom, family members and Master of Ceremonies all took their places on the stage in front of the audience.
The Master of Ceremonies gave what was probably a welcoming speech (the entire enactment was in Khmer so our two travelers were slightly at a loss). He then walked among the audience asking for volunteers to be the mother and father of the groom. After finding a “mother” he approached Sapphire (who was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible) and asked, “Would you please be the father of the groom?”. Fighting his initial reluctance (the poor guy had already asked a number of men, all who had declined) Sapphire agreed to play the part and followed him onto the stage. A very supportive Amethyst joked later that if only they had known, she would have made sure he was more appropriately dressed.
What followed was interesting, intriguing and entertaining. The rituals carried out during the ceremony all have symbolic links to the Khmer culture. One of the rituals is Gaat Sah (hair cutting ceremony) symbolises the cleansing of the couple from their past and preparing them to start their new life together. The couple sit side by side and the parents take turns pretending to cut their hair.
Sapphire managed to carry off his portrayal as the father of the groom relatively successfully, even performing of the Gaat Sah ritual.
After the ceremony Amethyst and Sapphire left the theater feeling somewhat enriched. While they walked through the park, viewing different exhibition areas, they realised that the few hours they had allowed for this visit would not do justice to this impressive cultural heritage experience. They would have to return at some time in the future.
To Amethysts delight they encountered a statue of Ganesha, the Hindu god of new beginnings and removal of obstacles. This deity is recognisable by having the head of an elephant. They also passed a number of other statues including an impressive display of a mother elephant defending her calf.
After enjoying lunch at the village restaurant they explored some more and seeing a door in an apparent mountainside, had to investigate. The creaking metal door led into a dark and gloomy rough passageway and soon they realised that they had found the “Ghost Tunnel” feature attraction of the Village. The fact that they had entered via the exit and had not paid the $2 entrance fee did not deter them but lent an air of excitement to the experience.
Like two naughty teenagers they explored the dark tunneled pathways through spooky-looking entrance-ways, past strange and disquieting figures and displays. This included a section aptly named the “Tunnel of Judgement” depicting horrific punishments being meted out to perpetrators of various crimes.
They eventually found themselves approaching the entrance where the “guardian of the gate” would undoubtedly require payment of the entrance fee. Like two mischievous children they sneaked their way back to the exit. They soon found themselves back on the outside walkway still feeling somewhat “teenager-ish”. This feeling prevailed as Amethyst could not resist a drum routine on a stage drum set on the side of one of the theatres where they also had try on Chinese dragon head-pieces waiting for the next performance.
They finally called it a day and headed back home on the Tuk Tuk, their minds a-whirl with everything they had seen and experienced, determined to return to spend an entire day in the future.