The Water Festival, is a national event, taking place once a year, at the end of the raining season. It used to be a Phnom Penh event, as the King oversees the celebrations, but now has a sister event in Siem Reap. The main event is a boat racing, among districts and provinces.
This celebration draft people from all over the country, bringing thousands and sometimes millions to the Capital, turning the city into a giant fair. And as you would expect, very large crowds often brings troubles. In fact, Cambodia had suffered a national tragedy in 2014 with a massive stampede on a small narrow bridge, killing a few dozen teenagers in an horrible massacre. This catastrophe had put an end to the celebration for a couple of years, before coming back in 2016. But the government had drawn from this experience and has properly and efficiently grid the riverside with police patrols, emergency medical units and video cameras all along the riverside.
So is the Water Festival in Phnom penh a safe celebration? We would think it is now a perfectly safe for families, tourists and locals.
