While the New Year holiday beginning on Tuesday is a Cambodian celebration, today could bring one province’s celebration to global prominence.

A Guinness Book of Records judge who arrived in Siem Reap province yesterday will today determine whether the giant traditional Khmer sticky rice cake – said to weigh 3.2 tonnes – is, indeed, the new world-record holder.

“We invited the Guinness Book of World Records [judge], and today, a German national arrived in Siem Reap, and is scheduled to judge the cake tomorrow,” Som Ratana, spokesman for Angkor Sangkranta – Siem Reap’s largest cultural event – said yesterday. “We don’t know what the result will be, but we hope we can break the world record.”

A staple of Khmer New Year, Siem Reap’s Angkor Sangkranta was organised by the Union of Youth Federation of Cambodia, which is headed by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s son Hun Many.

Ratana hopes that a world record title for the cake, which took about 100 chefs to bake, will put Cambodia in a more positive light around the world.

“People all over the world do not know much about Cambodia, they only know about our dark history, such as the Khmer Rouge regime,” Ratana told the Post. “Therefore, if we can break this world record, people around the world will know more about Cambodia and its good culture.”