Wat Ounalom Monastery,Phnom Penh

Wat Ounalom Buddhist Monastery is 10 minutes walk from my guesthouse at Street 110 after walking past Sisowath Quay area where there were many bars,restaurants and hotels.

Along the way the splendid view of the Tonle Sap River is very eye catching coupled with the evening sunset.
The temple(wat) is very large and a must see attraction while in Phnom Penh.

 During the tenure of the Khmer Rouge,the whole temple was nearly destroyed but now it has a newly refurbished facelift.



Before 1974,the Pagoda Monastery has nearly 500 Buddhist monks and the Buddhist Institute with a collection of nearly 30,000 titles but all has been destroyed by rouge people.

 Sisowath Quay Road ends at a junction where it continues along the riverside as Preah Sisowath Boulevard while another road inward is Somdech Sothearos Boulevard where Wat Ounalom Monastery is located.

 Somdech Sothearos is a very renowned Cambodian monk.He died in year 2007 and he's referred to as "the Gandhi of Cambodia" and also one of the four living Buddhas of the world.

Crowds of people sometimes burst into tears of emotion at the sight of him.
People would often spontaneously rise to their feet, or fall to their knees, when he appeared in public.
All other activities would come to a standstill, and all eyes would be riveted on him.






Cambodian Buddhist also celebrated the Buddhist New Year on this 14th April, wheres the Thais celebrated the Songkran Festival.

Chol Chnam Thmey or Cambodian New Year is one of the most celebrated of all festivities.
The New Year symbolizes a new start for the people by renewing their lives and leaving back the bad habits from the past year.

The people hope for a better year and ask for blessings and prosperity to God Buddha.
The Cambodian New Year lasts for three days and each day has a significant tradition that the people religiously follow.

The first day is known as the Maha Songkran. People welcome the first day of the year by buying new clothes and dressing up with using the finest and colorful linen.

The second day after the New Year is the Wanabat. This day is centered to the spirit of charity and gift giving.

The third day, which is the last day of the Cambodian New Year, is the Tngay Leang Saka which involves the cleansing and decorating of their religious figures by washing them with scented water and flower petals.

This Chariot of the God is beside the main entrance.A pair of horse but one with a broken front leg.

The Temple Mountain,an architectural representation of  Mount Meru, the home of the gods in Hindu mythology.

The style was influenced by Indian temple architecture.
Enclosures represented the mountain chains surrounding Mount Meru, while a moat represented the ocean.

The temple itself took shape as a pyramid of several levels, and the home of the gods was represented by the elevated sanctuary at the center of the temple.

The first great Temple Mountain was the Bakong, a five-level pyramid of sandstone constructed by rulers of the Khmer empire at Angkor near modern Siem Reap.







Inside the main hall there were a display of various olden days classic Khmer musical instruments including this gong.

From the main temple's hall,visitors can have a good view of the Tonle Sap Lake.

Wat Ounalom was built in 1443 to house a hair of the Buddha.

 It is the headquarters of Buddhism in Cambodia.

 Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh is located at what the French called Les Quatre Bras (the Four Arms), where two arms of the Mekong meet the Bassac and Tonle Sap tributaries.
The city’s original name, Chaktomuk, means Four Rivers. After Angkor fell to the Siamese in the 15th century, Cambodian King Ponhea Yat founded a new capital at Chaktomuk.

This city was soon abandoned as well, and from the mid –17th to mid-19th centuries the Cambodian capital shited to Phnom Penh in 1866.

The city is largely a French colonial era, and Phnom Penh quickly became an important commercial centre. The city was and still  the only major port on the Mekong above the delta; it is navigable by ships of 7,000 tons.From Phnom Penh, smaller vessels can navigate upriver to Siem Reap or Kratie.




The temple's compound contains two residences and a three-floor building which functions as a temple.
On the ground floor is a marble Buddha from Burma-smashed by the Khmer Rouge,but pieced together again in 1979.

 On the second floor is a brass statue of the patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism,Somdech Huot Tat,who was murdered by the Khmer Rouge.
The statue made in 1971 was flung into the river but retrieved in 1979.
On the third floor the walls depict scenes from Jataka (Thai: ชาดก chadok) Tales,that is literature native to India concerning the previous births (jati) of the Buddha.

A Hindu God figurine near the apex of temple's roof.Flying god I presume since she has wings.