Jenta assumes top spot

This is Ping Jenta, who on the 29th of this month will be appointed head monk at the pagoda of Wat Ang Popeay Meanchey, approximately 10kms south of Ang Snuol, a dusty town on the main highway between Phnom Penh and Kompong Speu. Jenta is 33 years old and speaks very good English, having travelled widely, including Paris, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and has the healing powers of a doctor, according to one of the wat's committee members. I met him on Sunday when I stopped by his wat to look for some sculpture fragments, which he proudly showed me and which include a sandstone pedestal. He was planning his big day with members of the committee but was more than welcoming with hot tea and ice-cold water offered before I even sat down. Born in the village next to the pagoda, Jenta is extremely proud to become the head monk and was quick to invite me to the ceremony, that will be presided over by an array of big-wigs from Phnom Penh. He has thirty monks at his pagoda, which was originally built in 1820 but was burnt down in the civil war and strife of the 1970s. It was the first stop on my Sunday jaunt west of Phnom Penh, to be followed by two more wats and five other sites that previously housed pre-Angkorean brick-built prasats. No earth-shattering discoveries but some nice moments to remember, like my meeting with Jenta, the new head monk.