Wat Sampov Pram is situated on Bokor Mountain. Nowadays it is put by the government into one of the most amazing tourist destinations to get fresh air at the sea. It lies along Kamchay Mountain in the former Koh Toch commune, Kampot district, Kampot province. But now this mountain is demarcated as a city, which is particularly administrated from Kampot province. Today this new city is renovated to be a modem one. A road bending up and down along the mountain side crossing the valleys toward the top of the mountain has been paved and tarred smoothly. Cars and Buses can easily go along the road, except long trucks since the road is so bending. The road up to the mountain from the divided road of National Road No.3 (Kampot-Veal Rinh) is approximately 32 kilometers long. Since the road is too bending form the foot to the top of the mountain, the cars and the buses cannot be driven fast. Before, Bokor was a place to get the fresh air for European people who were our colonist. This city was ordered to be built by Mr. Fran Cois Marins Baudoin, a Resident Superior to Cambodia and was officially inaugurated in 1925.
Khmer Holistically Place- Wat Sampov Pram In Bokor Mountain
In that time, considering that the French people built this place for their shelter to get cool and pure fresh air, His Majesty King of Cambodia immediately thought of Buddhism, so he ordered to have a monastery erected with land on the top of the mountain with many big pieces of rocks. The strange thing is the at that piece of rock looks like a slab with 10m long and roughly 10m high. The five oddly-sculpted rocks are shaped like the sailing boat. Seeing the shape of the five rocks like the sailing boats and the monastery was constructed near those rocks, so it was called “Wat Sampov Pram (Five sailing boats monastery)” After naming so, it was invented as a tale which was extracted from the existing myth of Preah Thorng and Neang Neak. The story goes as follows:
Long time ago, there was a Khmer prince whose name was Preah Thorng. The background of this prince was that he was dissatisfied with his father who obliged him to respect and obey his younger brother, so he left his royal palace with his faithful men and then arrived at the sand beach with a Thlork tree (Parinari annamensis) growing in the centre of the sand. The prince and his men stopped their journey there and took a rest under the tree. Getting up early in the morning, he strolled along the beach to get fresh air alone. Walking further and further, he heard the human noise. Then he went closer and saw Neang Neak taking her servants to play at the beach, too. He immediately fell in love with her and tried to persuade her to marry him. She agreed and asked Preah Thorng to hold her tail in order to her world to pay respect to her father.
After he was in the naga world for seven days, he then asked his father-in-law to come back to the human world. The naga king prepared valuable things for the five boats to accompany his son-in-laws to reign on the earth. The five boats opened their sails and began their journey until they got to seashore on the border of the country. The boats anchored one after another to disembark properties and the servants carried them to a place of high land for creation of the city.
These five boats were later reserved for the king to go somewhere for his pleasure. The five hundred men accompanied Preah Thorng and Neang Neak to build a royal palace, leaving the empty boats behind. Long time later the sea receded farther and farther and the soil piled up making the boats stranded on that shore. As time went by, the boats became hard stones to bury the bodies in the ground remaining only their sails as seen nowadays.
This is the tale that the residents invented to match with the real situation of a monastery on the top of Boko Mountain. Actually, according to a study, the pagoda in not very old, but fairly new one which was built in 1924 by His Majesty Preah Sisovath Monivong, king of Cambodia when the administration of the French colony developed Boka area into a resort to get the cold weather similar to Europe. At the time, that French administration provided the king of Cambodia with a place to build his palace on the mountain top; therefore, the king decided to build this pagoda on the land adjacent to five oddly-sculptured rocks, where a small, but beautiful temple and little stupa wercon ructed in front of it and named” ‘Wat Sampov Pram’ adapting the land of five ‘oddly-sculptured rocks, which looks like the five sails of boats there. Nowadays, Boko is an interesting place for tourists to relax on their holiday. Therefore Wat Sampov Pram becomes a well-known resort.
Long time ago, in Khmer kingdom there was a king named Preah Bat Bayong, who had a royal palace in Dangrek Mountain. The king had a wife named Neang Sak Kraob. She was the most beautiful woman with smiling face, and white complexion like an angel. The good fragrance of her body could be smelled around 16 kilometers. Then, this great fame was publicized to Siam king. This king sent a spy to find out and finally they knew that the queen was really a beautiful and faithful woman. The Siam king made a bad scheme to catch her to his kingdom for the great honor of his country. When Preah Bat Bayong knew this trick, he immediately took his wife, group of ladies- in- waiting, servants, officers and all soldiers to leave the palace by the junks toward the southeast in the nighttime. Before leaving, the king raised his both hands on the head and prayed to God, "May I achieve three wishes 1. Have a safe journey on the waterway, 2. Be not caught up by Siam soldiers 3. Find a good residence.
The novel Sophat was written by Rim Kin in 1938 but not published until 1942 due to a lack of publishing facilities in Cambodia at that time. The book depicts both the repression endured by Cambodian women at that time and the ripple effects that this treatment could have on all of society. Girls and young women who became pregnant outside of marriage were made to feel ashamed. Like the mother of this story’s title character, they and their children were often abandoned, their existence denied. This tale begins with the abandonment of a pregnant young woman by the well-to-do, high-ranking father of her unborn child, who goes to Phnom Penh for work. She is left to deliver her baby alone, without any support from relatives. Unable to care for the child, she leaves it with an orphanage. Before she leaves her son, she gives him a name: “Sophat.” When she learns that her former sweetheart has left her for another woman, she is so utterly devastated by the betrayal that she soon falls ill an
The novel tells the story of Bun Thoeun (ប៊ុនធឿន) and Vitheavy (វិធាវី), whose parents have arranged for them to marry since they were young. After Bun Thoeun’s father loses his boat in a storm transporting rice to Prey Nokor, his family lose their livelihood and become poor. “Mrs. Nuon (យាយនួន), mother of Vitheavy, prefers money over honor and cancels the engagement. Instead she arranges a new marriage for Vitheavy with Naisot (ណៃស៊ត), who is a rich man. Naisot is bad-tempered and immoral and uses his money to do anything he wants. After becoming engaged to Naisot, Vitheavy falls ill, and pines for Bun Thoeun. However, she dares not argue with her mother over the engagement. As her health worsens, Mrs. Nuon takes her daughter to t Siem Reap, but Vitheavy’s spirits remain low. When Vitheavy coughs up blood, her superstitious mother takes her to a fortune teller/healer, who tries various methods to try to cure her. However, it does not work and Vitheavy’s condition worsens. Bun Thoe
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