The 7th Wonder of the World lies twelve times zones away. But you can gaze on its likeness and eat Cambodian street food this weekend.
According to the press release:
“For the first time in 31 years, the Cambodian Buddhist Temple of Dallas or Wat Jetaphon Khemararam and the Cambodian community leaders publicly welcomes and opens its doors to the public to a 3-day festival celebrating the completion of their temple gates.”
The Cambodian Buddhist Temple of Dallas has been tucked into a tree-tufted part of South Dallas, less than a 20 minute drive from Bishop Arts, since 1985. For the past four and a half years, they have been working on creating a temple gate that is a replica of the gates at Angkor Wat, 7th Wonder of the World, with all of its cosmological imagery.
“These gates are the only replica in the world like Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The 11 monks living at the temple and community volunteers have spent more than 4.5 years hand carving and sculpting the extraordinary religious and symbolic gates. It measures 32ft. wide by 32ft. in height. This rare celebrating and occasion will have more than 150 monks from across the nation and some from Cambodia who will join in the celebration and give their blessings upon the festival and the temple,” says the release.
What this means is a street-market ambiance, with dance and music performances, a marketplace for shopping, an official ribbon-cutting ceremony (Sunday 2pm), and over 25 local food vendors.
You can expect fresh-pressed sugar cane juice, lots of street food on sticks, coconut ice cream sundaes drizzled with sweetened condensed milk and served on a hot dog bun, as they do in Thailand, and other delicious things that are very hard to find outside this kind of context. I’m imagining things that look like this:
Given how little Cambodian food we have in Dallas, this is a treat, both cultural and culinary.
Details:
Cambodian Buddhist Temple of Dallas
5701 Crystal Lake Blvd., Dallas, 75236
Friday, June 10: 5pm-11pm (cultural performances and music on main stage starting; monks blessings and chanting)
Saturday June 11: 10am-11pm (food offering to monks 11am, cultural parade around temple grounds 12pm, dance and music on main stage starting 5pm)
Sunday, June 12: 10am-11pm (food offering to monks 11am, cultural parade followed by performances 1:30pm, ribbon-cutting 2pm)
Free admission and free parking in areas marked for temple parking. Cash is recommended for market vendors.
