Phnom Pros, Phnom Srey

About Phnom Pros Phnom Srey (Male and Female Mountains) 

Phnom Pros Phnom Srey is located in Krala Commune, Kampong Siem District, Kompong Cham Province, about 7 kilometers from Kampong Cham Provincial town or about 114 kilometers from Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Phnom Pros is a dull peak hill about 30 meters high. On the hill is a pagoda named Wat Sovankiri Rattanak Phnom Pros. It has a spot for vehicles to park at the top. The main temple is five peaks, constructed in the style of Banteay Srei temple in Siem Reap.  Another temple on Phnom Pros has two peaks and was constructed during the Samnkum Reasre Niyum regime or then-prince Norodom Hihanouk. Near the temple is 15-meter-high  stupa, which was constructed by a monk name Keo Suor, who the first head monk of the pagoda. A Kot is at the food of the hill. During 1975 to 1979, during the Khmer Rouge regime, Phnom Pros was used a prison and tortures center.

About 1000 meters north of Phnom Pro, there is another high hill with a sharp-pointed peak called Phnom Srei. There’re also several smaller hills at Phnom Srei. No monks live there, however, there is a Duan Chi (nun) who care for the site and ask visitor for donations to rebuild the temple.

The Story of Phnom Pros Phnom Srey

Once upon a time, there was a queen named Srey Ayuthea, reigning in Khmer territory. During her reign, no man dared to propose a woman to marry, so the queen asked for a good looking man he loved to marry her. By following her track, her female subordinates also ask the men to marry them. 

During that era, it was pitiful for the unattractive women who proposed the men to marry, but the man generally refused to accept their proposals. They only picked up the pretty girls to be their wives. This custom was carried out in the reign of Queen Srey Ayuthyea. In the later reigns of other kings, the women assembled together and said, “It is not appropriate for us to propose the men to marry. We will make a competition with the men. The competition is to dig up the soil and pile it up to make a hill. If the men lose the match, they must ask u to marry them. “After the discussion, they went to challenge the men to compete by pilling up the hills with strict promise and conditions. If any group could pill up the hill higher than the other, the loser must propose the winner group to marry.   

Then the woman selected group leader to collect the many members, as the men, they did the same way by mobilizing a lot of member. After meeting together, the women group lead said to the men group leader, “We all have to pile up a hill for each group from the falling of the dusk until the mooring stars rise up.” 

After the agreement, the two sides began to carry the soil by using their own techniques. Some dug up the soil, some carried it on their head, some carried it with a bar across the shoulders, and some carried with baskets. When the night came in and after the women carried the soil for many hours they came up with an idea. They played a trick to put up a small lantern on a high post at the northeast. When seeing the lantern and supposing it as a morning star, the men asked all of their members to stop working and went to sleep.  As for the women, they continued to carry the soil to pile up their hill until the morning star shone.

Once cocks crowed at dawn, the men got up and saw mooring stars shining and exclaimed, “We are all wrong. The morning star has just shone.” and then the men saw the women’s hill was higher than theirs, they felt great ashamed because they were cheated by women. Since then men request women to marry. 

The End.