An estimated one million people are mourning the late Cambodian former monarch, King Norodom Sihanouk. The body of the most revered monarch, who died at the age of 90 in Beijing last year, was transported in a Khmer architectural float from the Cambodian palace, where it has been exhibited for more than 3 months, and paraded through the city to the cremation site.
The country has commenced a week-long mourning for the late King from February 1-7. During the period, all radios, television stations and entertainment places are not allowed to broadcast joyful spectacles, performances, and concerts, while national flags are instructed to fly at half-mast.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said the funeral is the largest of all in the country's funeral history. "We hold it in order to express our deepest gratitude to the King Father for his royal crusades to gain independence from France in 1953," he said. "The funeral gives us the chance to bid a final farewell to him."
"It is a great loss for Cambodia; the former King is the hero of Cambodia," Sok Sophoan, 63, said tearfully while attending the procession. "The King Father loved his people as if he loved his children. Even though he left us, we still remember him in our hearts forever."
Born on October 31, 1922, Sihanouk ruled Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 until his voluntary abdication on October 7, 2004 in favor of his son, the current King Norodom Sihamoni. He had gone through decades of political and social turmoil in Cambodia, including long periods of exile overseas.
The late monarch suffered from various forms of cancer, diabetes and hypertension and had been treated by Chinese doctors in Beijing for years before his death.
The late monarch wrote a royal letter in January, 2012 and requested his body to be cremated instead of being buried and his ashes to be put in an urn, preferably made of gold, and placed in a stupa at the Royal Palace.
Prince Sisowath Thomico, the spokesman for the Royal Cabinet and former aide to the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk, has confirmed the urn was made of gold platinum.