Seen this numerous times. Street people / homeless people doing their morning rounds. The locals don't really care, but will chase them away sometimes.

Dog wrote: ↑Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:41 pm Was sitting outside a coffee shop today when I noticed a Khmer man in his 20s sauntering along. As he approached a spirit house over the road he grabbed one of the offerings.- a fruit juice drink in a plastic cup - and strolled on with it. It was quiet and I was the only person outside the coffee shop. Wondering what the average Khmer would do if they saw this happen? Round up a rent a mob and beat him? Or would it be considered just that he was clearly in need of a drink more than the spirits? Never seen this before in over 10 years living around the country and maybe it's a reflection of changing attitudes towards superstition that he would take the drink?

It's not something you'll see everywhere, and would generally be frowned upon, especially if the offerings are new or fresh. If your next-door neighbor tried that you'd be rightly annoyed, but with street urchins what's the point?
My relations here always put weird toys on the spirit house. then sometimes shot glasses of coffee and maybe some cakes or bananas. Every day when I drove through a certain area my father-in-law would stop to buy a chicken head, to go on the altar. He'd also stick a fresh beer up there every evening. For the ancestors and the Neak Ta. I have to admit running out of beer around there a few times and replacing the ghost beer with a can of water. The thing would only be hot and filled with dead ants and larva and bugs by the morning anyway.


Whet I find really strange are the weird little constructions made out of banana leaves and skewers and various bits and pieces, you see them in special spots like under an old tree or along the lines of an old brook, that might by now be a sewer. The traditions remain long after the terrain has changed.

The little constructions made of banana leaves and skewers are used when exorcising bad spirits out of sick (possessed) people.