Kathen — Robe-Offering Festival 2026
Kathen — Robe-Offering Festival 2026
For twenty-nine days each autumn, Siem Reap province holds its most generous festival — and most visitors never hear of it. Kathen is the robe-offering season, and it belongs to the villages.
Through the three months of Vossa, the rains retreat, monks stay within their pagoda. When the retreat ends at Chenh Vossa, the community responds. Kathen is how: laypeople bring new robes, alms bowls, mats, cash and household goods to the monks who have spent the wet season in study and seclusion. The word itself means the cloth — the length of fabric offered and, traditionally, cut and sewn into a robe within a single day.
What makes Kathen distinctive is that it is not one event on one day. Every pagoda in Cambodia holds exactly one Kathen in the season, and no more. The date is chosen by the pagoda committee together with the sponsoring family or group who funds it. So across Siem Reap province — Banteay Srei, Puok, Prasat Bakong, Sotr Nikom, Chi Kraeng, Kralanh, the villages of Phnom Kulen and the communities along the Tonle Sap — the celebrations fall on different days, rolling through the province for a month.
A Kathen procession is a joyful thing. Money is folded into paper “trees”, music plays from the back of a truck, and the whole village walks or rides to the wat, circling it three times before the offering is made. There is dancing. There is a great deal of food. It is a village party with a religious spine, and it is one of the warmest expressions of Khmer community life you will see.
In 2026 the season opens the day after Chenh Vossa — around 27 October — and runs for twenty-nine days, into late November. Because each pagoda sets its own day, there is no single schedule; the way to find one is to ask locally, watch for the processions, or simply follow the music.
Visitors are genuinely welcome, and this is one of the few festivals where a foreigner is far more likely to be pulled into the celebration than politely ignored. Dress modestly, remove your shoes at the vihear, and if you are offered food, accept it.
