If you enjoy New Year’s celebrations, Phnom Penh is not a bad place to be, because you have three of them to pick from. Chances are you’ll see at least some observance of Western New Year, since the city is home to so many “Barang” (western) expats. There’s an even more distinct presence of Chinese New Year, with the city having a strong influence of Chinese culture; thus you’ll quite possibly spot lion dances in the street and other Chinese New Year festivities at temples — Wat Phnom, the original temple in town, erected a large (seemingly) golden statue of a horse to mark this year’s mascot. But the big enchilada, of course, is Khmer New Year, when many businesses (including schools) close for a few days and the locals ditch the city to visit their roots in the provinces.

Our school doesn’t do much to commemorate the first two New Year’s of the New Year, but does go in big for Khmer New Year. This is when the school takes its “small vacation” (wakan toich), giving the students and teachers a few days’ break. But before that, there is a party for the students, and then typically the following day, when the students have already taken there leave, there is a party for the grownups.

Since it’s customary to wear traditional Khmer clothing for some of these events (and to at least spruce up for others), and since we had not had the foresight to retain all the garments we’d obtained our last time around, we ended up doing an 11th-hour scramble to supplement our wardrobe. For Kimberly, this was an opportunity to have a fun outing with co-workers to browse through the clothing stalls at Tuol Tom Poung (“Russian Market”).

But unlike the students who performed a traditional Khmer dance in traditional Khmer clothing, Kimberly and some of the other teachers dressed in a more contemporary fashion to perform a more contemporary hip hop dance. Dennis, however, was invited to join a group of teachers performing a traditional Khmer courtship dance. He jumped at the chance to be immersed in a local cultural experience, which is one of the main reasons we travel — and he’d been an avid folk dancer in one of his previous lifetimes. (There’s video of the performance for proof: Part 1 and Part 2.) There was also a casual dress party for teachers to let their hair down and indulge in some fun games like tug of war.

Before the students were dismissed to celebrate with their families. Kimberly’s gaggle of kindergarteners, donned their finest attire and loaded into two school vans to pay their respects at the local temple, Wat Dambok Khpos, bringing along some food to donate to the monks. The monks blessed them with chants and a moral story. The students participated in the festivities, placing flowers on the altar and busied themselves by counting the all of the statues of Buddhas in Khmer and English (about 30).

Blue Indigo Yoga Mindfulness Retreat

We took advantage of our time off to get out of town. Only about 10 miles out, but it seemed like another world. After taking a ferry and tuk-tuk through a village on the outskirts of the city, we were dropped off at Blue Indigo, a wellness retreat on the river, for three days of yoga, meditation and general all purpose unwinding.

Normally, this would have been a considerably busier place, with more classes, more staff and more attendees. But because of Khmer New Year, we were the only guests except for another couple who departed the morning after our first night there. Because of the sparse attendance, we were the only occupants of a 7-bed dorm; so we in effect got a private room without paying extra.

Even with vacation status, there was a meditation session at 6:00 every morning, and a couple of yoga classes during the day — we were joined in these classes by a couple of the teachers, whom we had a good time getting acquainted with. The teachers were especially delightful company, as they were also world travelers, and therefore kindred spirits. One was from Poland and the other had also visited Rishikesh, India, where we’d spent some time not long ago, while Kimberly herself was getting certified as a yoga instructor. (Rishikesh is considered the Yoga Capital Of The World.) And even though the usual cook was on hiatus, the property owner/meditation teacher (he’s from France) did double time as chef and the food was superb.

This was a place, we decided, that we’d be delighted to return to and perhaps even volunteer at in the future. It was, all in all, a reinvigorating little getaway that left us refreshed to begin the (Khmer) New Year.

Events occurred 4/1 -17/2026