For good fortune! Cambodian villagers paint their bodies and dance in grass skirts for colors

[geovalin]

Villagers from a town on the outskirts of Phnom Penh in Cambodia donned either grass skirts or sequinned dresses in the name of good luck and rain on Thursday.

Residents of Pring Ka-ek village mostly wore grass skirts, traditional body paint and masks decorated with bull horns, while some performers armed themselves with bamboo sticks.

However, others have a more modern take on the celebration - a traditional annual ceremony to ask a Spirit to help them protect their homes and animals.

A man is pictured with a big gold ring, a fake moustache and wads of US banknotes taking a photo with a friend who holds up a rose gold iPhone, while another paints their face to look like a clown and rides in on a scooter.

Chicken is cooked in bulk over a fire pit, skewered on long metal poles, and many residents arrive in ox carts. Many of the locals blacken their faces, if not their whole bodies.

The ceremony, Lok Ta Pring Ka-Ek, is also used to ask for rainfall, as it lies within rice planting season. 80 per cent of Cambodia's population of 14 million live in rural areas and 73 per cent rely on agriculture for their livelihood and rice is their main crop.

Cambodia has only just recently seen rain after its longest drought in the last four decades. The drought left about two-thirds of the country's 25 provinces short of water for drinking, rice planting, and other necessities.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3632967/Anything-good-fortune-Cambodian-villagers-paint-bodies-dance-grass-skirts-colourful-luck-festival.html#ixzz4B9LUDQHc

[soalbundy]

wont work, none of them had a bone through their nose

[Ulic]

Looks like an excuse to dress up as clowns to me.

[northernphil]

Nice photo but " War paint ,war paint , you don't need it "