'Our version of Formula 1': Cambodian villagers race oxcarts

KAMPONG SPEU

Villagers aboard Cambodian-flagged wooden carts ran their oxen at high speed on April 7 in an annual race to safeguard the centuries-old tradition as concerns mount over development encroaching on racing grounds.

Despite scorching sun, hundreds of people flocked to see 46 pairs of oxen take part in the competition, which took place at an empty field in Kampong Speu province, west of capital Phnom Penh.

The oxen, adorned with colourful masks or headgear, must sprint around a one-kilometre dirt track.

"It is our version of Formula 1," organiser Khat Sokhay told AFP.

"We race oxcarts because they are on the brink of disappearance."

The event is held every year to mark the end of the rice harvesting season and to welcome the Khmer New Year in mid-April.

"During the modern era (in other places), they race cars, but we race oxcarts so that the legacy of our ancestors won't disappear," cart driver Tang Sreang, 43, told AFP.

Culture officials said the oxcart race was organized with the aim of preserving the tradition, which stretches back hundreds of years, for future generations.

"It is our heritage, so we must preserve it," Sun Meanchey, director of Kampong Speu's culture department, told AFP.

He also voiced concerns that grounds for such races are being taken over by homes and factories.

"What worries me is that in the future when our country is more developed, rice fields will be replaced by factories," Sun Meanchey said.

Many villagers in Cambodia rely on oxen to plough their rice fields and oxcarts were once widely used for transport.

But more and more farmers are embracing modern agricultural methods and transportation, raising fears that the old ways of doing things could be lost.