Yeay Mao

She is venerated especially along the road from Phnom Penh to the sea port of Sihanoukville, as well as in Kampot, Koh Kong, and Kep.

Drivers still stop at her shrine along National Road 4 near Phnom Pech Nil to pay their respects and wash their cars with water from the stream nearby, as well as the monument at Bokor.

In 2023, after a surge of car accidents on the Phnom Penh- Preah Sihanouk’s expressway, the government decided to build a shrine for her at Sre Ambil station for travelers to stop along and pray.

The believers go to the Shrine or any place destined for the veneration, to bring sacred food, especially pig head, chicken soup, the sla-thoa (ស្លាធម៌) - a coconut adorned with flowers and leaves and used in religious celebrations in Cambodia, the bay-sei (បាយសី)- section of banana tree trunk with legs to which three to nine layers of banana leaves rolled up in finger shape have been attached.

[3] The place of the veneration must be set with three statues: According to Seik Sopat and Sadang Tuo,[4] the story of Yeay Mao dates from 1866, when she was a spirit of cruelty that attacked any traveller that did not pay respects to her at Pech Nil Mountain (ភ្នំពេជ្រនិល).

During the short Japanese invasion of Cambodia in 1940, the army of that country gathered the farmers of Kampot Province and Vietnamese, Chinese and Cham Cambodians, to dig trenches at the ancient sacred place.

[6] In order to placate the spirit, the people started again to offer gifts to Yeay Mao and the veneration revived.

Altar to Yeay Mao in Riem Pagoda, Sihanoukville .
Sela waits for her husband (សិលាចាំប្តី), a monument in Kep Province inspired in a version of Yeay Mao, whose husband went to the wars with Siam and never returns, so she decided to go to the west in his search.