Retour a Chi Phat - 18 mars au 22 mars

As promised, this message will be in english to enable our friends from Cambodia to read it! Please, dear friends, be aware that we will here describe our experience in Chi Phat as non-cambodians and non-experienced khmer wedding attendees. We hope you will enjoy reading our point of view as much as our canadian friends will !

Désolé à tous nos lecteurs francophones qui pourraient avoir un peu plus de difficulté à comprendre cette aventure. Or, nous souhaitons vraiment que tous nos amis de Chi Phat puissent nous lire ! Nos récits en français seront de retour dès la prochaine aventure !

Heading to Chi Phat
We left Bangkok on March 17, late in the morning after finally finding a shirt and some shoes for Mathieu to attend the wedding, with a direct bus to Trat close to the Cambodian border. We spent the night in Trat and woke up early the next morning to leave the guesthouse at 5:00 am in order to catch the first minibus to the border. Mathieu had to wake up at 4:00 since he had a little problem while shaving is head the night before. The battery of his razor had died... he had gone to bed looking like a weirdo with a half-shaved head!

We reached the border around 7:00 am and the crossing went very smoothly thanks to the e-visa we had bought online in advance to avoid any rip-off at the border (yes, some border officials tend to ask for inflated amount for the visa !). On the other side, we jumped on the back of a motobike to reach Koh Kong City located at 15 km so that we could cath the bus that would allow us to get to destination. Half an hour later, we were sitting in this bus with a planned stop at Andoung Tek, the bridge where everything started last time! Everything happened so fast, we hardly had time to realise we were back into a known country... but when we did, it felt so good to be back in Cambodia!

In Andoung Tek, we received an offer from 2 motobike drivers; instead of waiting for the slow boat (it leaves in the afternoon and it was only 10:00 am), they could take us right away with for a reasonable price. We agreed rapidly because we were really looking forward to seeing our friends in Chi Phat.

After a rough ride on a dirt track (in fact it was more a mud track because of the rain of the last few days), we arrived at the river where we took the small ferry (two canoes linked together with a wood plank) and we walked to the CBET office, where we were warmly welcomed. We were finally back !

The Stay
Not long after getting to Chi Phat, Chiva, the future bride, took us to our room in her parent's house where we would be staying until the next day. We felt very honored to be there as we were no longer some random tourists visiting the village, but friends visiting friends!

On the 18th and the 19th, the bride and the groom's families arrived in the village. We soon realized that it would be a huge wedding (if we compared with our north american standards). Veasna told us that there may be up to 400 or 500 persons attending! No wonder there was so much work for the cooks (whom Katia had the chance to assit the day before the wedding). Everyone found a place to sleep, the rooms at the bride's place were packed with people as well as some rooms at other houses in the village. Therefore, on the 19th, we took our luggage and transfered to Hum Pom's house (Aunt Pom), which was our cook during our visit in Chi Phat in February. We were treated like members of her family the whole time we stayed there. Just moving back to Chiva's place for the last night of our stay was a moment that brought a lot of tears in Katia's eyes, as well as in Hum Pom's. The real departure would be even worst !

The Wedding
Traditional khmer weddings are so different from our traditional weddings. We do not know many travellers that will have the chance to experience something similar and we will always be grateful to Vesna and Chiva to have accepted to share this moment with us. And, once again, we were really lucky to have Pharktra, the groom's brother, to help us understand what was happening.

The wedding lasts for 2 (sometimes even 3) days. Chiva and Veasna's wedding started on late afternoon on the 19th. After the village priest had talked to the "spirits" loudly with is microphone, the religious celebrations started. The groom, joined by his best men, sat on a table were he would received the blessing from the priest and from his parents. Later that day, once the monks arrived, there was another "semi-private" celebration in the bride's house where about 20-30 people were gathered for another traditional ceremony. We saw the bride fully dress for the wedding for the first time during this ceremony and she was so beautiful.

The day of the 20th was when most of the celebrations/ceremonies were held. It started really early in the morning at around 6h30am. Many of the guests gathered on the main road of the village, about 200 meters from the bride's house. Everyone was holding a plate with either fruits, vegetables, alcool, tabaco, sodas, beer or even a pig head. We were in charge of the dragon fruits. The large group slowly walked behind the groom to deliver all the valuable products to his future wife. After breakfast (rice porridge, fruits and cakes), the second ceremony of the day started. The english name for this ceremony would be " The hair cutting ceremony" and this is exactly what is happening during it... Well, in fact, the groom and the bride do not get their hair cut for real because nowadays it's more a mock hair cut that is performed but this ceremony still symbolizes the "fresh start" to their new relationship as husband and wife. During this ceremony, the couple is sitting in front and two "clowns" (master of ceremony) tease them and also tease the crowd. We were particularly targetted by the jokes, but everything was funny! After the jokes, Chiva's grandmother went in front to cut the hair and retreive the gold ring in the hair of the bride; the finding of the ring signifies that the couple will have a prosperous life. After, family members and friends were invited to do the same. We were also invited in front to perform this ceremony!

Next was the "passing of blessings" during which a small circle is created around the bride and groom and some candles are lit and handed from person to person clockwise for seven times. The following and last ceremony is called the "knot tying ceremony" where family members and friends tied red strings to the bride and groom's wrists while giving them their best wishes and blessings. People give some money during this ceremony as contribution/gifts for the wedding. It is the final ceremony of the wedding and we think it may be the most important one. It is also a good time to take a picture with the newly weds! We were really impressed about the clothing of the bride and the groom. Indeed, the bride had 10 different dresses for the 2 days and the groom also had a lot of different traditional outfits.

The party
We came back late in the afternoon to the wedding "site", this time for something we were familiar with... the party! Veasna's father guided us to a table full of people we didn't know. Fortunately, there where all Veasna's friends and they all spoke very good english. They were all there to have a very good time! Every reason was good to "cheer". In Cambodia, you never drink your glass alone; if you want to drink you always call for a "cheer" which we did the whole night long! We laught the whole diner. After the good cambodian food, it was time for the groom and bride to cut the cake. They did so after a long round of applause for the newly weds! Once more, we were honored by Veasna, he took the time to thank us for our presence during his first speech of the night in front of everyone. Once the cake was cut, the dance floor was filled with dancing amateurs including us. Now come the tricky part, they don't dance as we do back home, it's the traditional Kmer dance, which we had some difficulties learning. At the end, we were pretty good on the dance floor, either because of the practice or the alcool we drank during the evening.

The following days

We stayed in bed a little later the next morning... In fact, we got up just in time to join Veasna and his best men for lunch and a few beers. Afterwards, we were invited for an afternoon picnic at the waterfall, the popular place for family gathering. We spent to whole afternoon relaxing and chatting, eating traditional cambodian food, drinking rice wine (the most popular drink) and beer and swimming in the river. Once again, the men on one side and the women on the other. The picnic was followed by a motobike ride to the mountain to see the sunset and continue the party!

For our last complete day in Chi Phat, we spent time with Hum Pom's family. After sharing their breakfast, we spent the morning in their company. They prepared a very nice meal big shrimps for lunch specially for us.... hummm! In the afternoon, it was decided that we would go to the river for a picnic but unfortunately the rain obliged us the change our plans. The women cooked for a few hours and we had the delicious meal under the stilt house (the khmer living room). We had stuffed rice pancake which was perfect with some Anchor beer. We said our goodbyes at the end of the day when we moved back to Chiva's place.

We woke up early on the 22nd for our last meal with Chiva and Veasna. We received nice gifts from them before leaving with the motobikes. This time it was a sad goodbye. We had such a good time in Chi Phat, we were welcomed like family members, we made so many friends and lived such a nice experience. For sure we will never forget our two visits in Chi Phat and everyone we met over there. Hopefully, we will have the chance to go back one day. Chiva and Veasna, our door will be open for you whenever you are ready to visit us in Canada!