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ANCIENT TRADITIONS AND HISTORY
WHAT IS BON OM TUK?
Bon Om Tuk is a Khmer tradition brought over from Cambodia. Every year millions of Cambodians descend onward to Phnom Penh for the Bon Om Tuk Water Festival. The festival marks the end of the rainy season and occurs in November for three nights during the full moon. Villages send teams with their dragon boats to compete during the 3 day event. Racing takes place from around noon till sunset and a pair of boats one right after another race from the Japanese Friendship Bridge down stream to the finish line in front of the Royal Palace. Over 350 boats participate annually.
  
TRADITIONS EMBEDDED IN HISTORY
From the naval battles between the Khmers and the Chams, who hailed from the Kingdom of Champa once located in Central Vietnam prior to the 14th-15th Century. The two ancient rival kingdoms battled it out on the Tonle Sap Lake in 1177 A.D., which had accounts of a lake filled with blood after the Khmer naval victory. There were other accounts in the 17th Century of the Pirogue Racing Festival witnessed by the French during their exploration of Cambodia, Southeast Asia (Indochina) and moving on to the modern day naga serpent boats at Bon Om Tuk (Festival of boat races), Cambodia/Kambuja.
There has been accounts from the 12th Century by Chou Ta-kuan in 1296 A.D., a Chinese envoy who stayed at Angkor for one year and described seeing the Khmer-Angkor navy paddle in long boats that look like a snake or sea serpent in the many waterways that Cambodia had during the Angkor Period, which included man made canals, altered rivers, dikes, reservoirs called barays (ba-rai), and huge pools of water called "sras" in the Khmer language. The mode of transportation was much easier by boat and especially to reach certain temples that were built on artificial islands surrounded by large reservoirs (barays) and houses near waterways and rivers. A good example of a large reservoir that still holds a large amount of water with the island still in the middle, which still has remnants of the temple that once stood on that island is the West Mebon Temple on the West Baray.
Chou Ta-Kuan's accounts of the Khmer Naval fleet:
a) They are all low in the water;
b) They are elongated, 'broad in the center and tapering at the two ends' as Chou Ta-Kuan has it.
c) They have no sails and can carry several persons; they are propelled by oars' as he says. We should add that the oarsmen are replaced by paddlers. Rowers or paddlers are divided into two symmetrical rows.
d) They are steered by a helmsman positioned at the rear end possessing one big oar which acts as a rudder;
e) Lastly, they are all laden with warriors ready for the fight.
Some examples would be the waterway areas in Kompong Chhnang province (3 hours north of Phnom Penh), Siem Reap, the Tonle Sap Lake/River region, and the Mekong Delta region inhabited by Khmer Krom (southern Khmer/lowland Khmer). So, the use of the boat (tuk pronounced "tuke" = boat in the Khmer language) was highly essential in everyday life for the ancient Khmers, which helped with the transportation of stones to build the many temples, monuments, and bridges of Angkor that came from the Kulen Mountains located in Siem Reap and trade goods of merchants and seafarers from India and China that came up through the ancient Khmer seaport of Oc-Eo (pronounced O-Keo) located in Kampuchea Krom = once known as the lower/southern region of the Khmer Empire in present day southern Vietnam up the Mekong River.
Other major centers that had the same livelihood as Angkor was Angkor Borei, an ancient lost capital of the Nokor Phnom (Funan) era near the present day Cambodian and Vietnam border, and Prei Nokor, Kampuchea Krom in present day Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam which could be traced back to the Funan/Nokor Phnom era in the 1st Centry A.D. or possibly three centuries before 1st Century A.D. according to the data received from the dating of the man made canals near the Angkor Borei area (known by the Chinese). Before Thailand had it's floating markets and coined the name: "Venice of the East." Angkor of ancient Cambodia already had that throughout it's empire during it's zenith.
The use of the long naga serpent boats were good for strategic naval warfare and to get from one destination to another just like the use of the war elephants or ox carts on land, which are depicted on the bas-reliefs walls of the 12th Century Bayon Temple located in Angkor, Siem Reap, Cambodia or in it's heyday, Kambuja.
Other countries in Southeast Asia and South Asia that do the long boat races according to tradition include Khmer Krom (ethnic Khmers living in present day Southern Vietnam which was once part of the southern region of the Khmer Empire), Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. Lastly in India, which they call snake boat racing.
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