I hope this cambodes well: Why is this holiday different than all the other holidays?

A couple of weeks ago, after returning from Thailand, I celebrated Khmer New Year, year 2557 (year of the snake), with my host family. This is the biggest deal holiday of them all here, even though sometimes there is a holiday every week, but I still expected this week to be drastically different than all others of the year. I heard there were traditional games and I'm not really sure what else I conjured up in my head, but for the most part, this holiday was not much more than rest, much eating and drinking with family, travel to the homeland and 2-4 weeks off from school. The holiday is officially 3 days, but my town was fairly non-functioning for a week. It was similar to most big deal holidays in America in that families gather together and drink A LOT. Some activities happen at the Wat which often acts as a community center: games, dancing, attacking one another with baby powder and hanging out. People honor their deceased ancestors either at the Wat or in their homes which seems to happen whenever the family is gathered, although the official holiday for honoring the ancestors occurs in October (Pchum Ben). Otherwise, this holiday did not seem as religiously focused as others for my family, since we only went to the Wat to dar lang (walk-play/wander) and dance. I had heard that in Thailand during Songkran (New Year) water fights and baby powder are inescapable, so I figured it would be the same here. I was looking forward to being doused in water since April is the hottest month here, but I was only fortunate enough to be bombarded by cooling baby powder, some of which ended up in my mouth as I was riding my bike around town. Some highlights from these few days are:

*On a visit to my host dad's hometown, we did family "trick-or-treating" where we stopped by all the friends' and family's houses in the village to do some ongui lang-ing (sit-play/hang out). They had never seen a foreigner before as far as I understood and I had the same conversations repeatedly about my ability to speak Khmer, my white or black skin depending on their interpretation, my straight nose and lack of husband.
*One of my yaay's (grandma) said I look to old to find a husband with my numerous gray hairs and proceeded to pull them all out for about 15 minutes. I didn't really say no as we had already drank several beers and it was 10:30 AM.
*The same morning, we had a ceremony for the deceased ancestors at the house with a monk and a priest-like man to bless the family. Immediately after, we ate the 2nd or 3rd meal of the day, drank and I made friends with a 7 year old girl. She wanted to drink beer which her mom had no problem with, so she took what was left in my can, poured it in her glass, then threw the can at the wall. This is pretty normal to throw trash wherever, but it was still saucy behavior for a 7 year old.
*As I rode my bike around my deserted town I only encountered small parties at people's houses and bands of drunk men screaming at me in English. At one point, I was halted by a group of rowdy teenagers who smothered me in baby powder and screamed jol ch'num tmai! (happy new year!).
*I went joy riding around my town in the back of a pickup truck, that apparently belongs to my uncle, at night and with 8 little cousins swinging around the bars and 3 women. We would cheer every time we passed a family celebrating the New Year in hopes they would give us a cheer back. We scouted out the happening Wat party where we danced to Gangam Style and Khmer music and were "filmed" by a man impersonating a cameraman using a beer box for a camera with a bright shining light emanating from it.

More pictures at the end of this album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sam_wise/sets/72157632187727135/