Nobody told me about the cats. There are dozens of them living in the pagoda complex at the summit of Phnom Santuk — temple cats, fed by the monks, completely unbothered by the hundreds of worshippers who arrive each Visak Bochea before midnight. When the chanting began at 2AM, the cats moved to the edge of the terrace and looked out at the plains below as if they, too, were meditating.
Phnom Santuk rises out of the flat rice country like an exclamation mark. The 809 steps to the summit are flanked by naga balustrades, and on an ordinary day the climb is a sweaty pilgrimage rewarded by reclining Buddhas carved into the living rock. On Visak Bochea, the night of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and passing, it becomes something else entirely.
We climbed at midnight with hundreds of others, candles in hand, the steps glowing in a slow river of light. At the summit the monks had been preparing for days. The chanting began at 2AM and rolled out over the dark plains. Families slept on mats. Children dozed against grandparents. Nobody was in a hurry.
And then the dawn — the whole province laid out below, pale gold, the rice paddies catching the first light one by one. It is the kind of view that makes 809 steps in the dark feel like a bargain.
You do not need a festival to climb Phnom Santuk — any clear morning rewards the effort — but if your trip lines up with Visak Bochea (usually May), it is worth rearranging everything else to be here.
