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Cambodia mourns as ex-king's body comes home

Tens of thousands of mourners on Wednesday lined the streets of the Cambodian capital to pay their last respects to revered former king Norodom Sihanouk on his final journey home from China. The body of the mercurial ex-monarch, who steered his country through turbulent decades of war, genocide and finally peace, returned to Phnom Penh on a special flight from Beijing, where he died of a heart attack on Monday aged 89. He was accompanied by his widow Queen Monique, son King Norodom Sihamoni and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Robed monks chanted prayers as the coffin was brought off the plane and decorated with white flowers. Large portraits of a smiling Sihanouk were dotted along the main boulevards in the capital, filled up with throngs of people, young and old, wearing white shirts and holding small Cambodian flags as they waited under a sweltering sun. "There are more than 100,000 people lining the streets. More are coming," government spokesman Khieu Kanharith told reporters at the airport, where people climbed on walls and car roofs to get a better view. A convoy was set to take the coffin straight to the royal palace, where Sihanouk will lie in state for three months before an elaborate funeral for the ex-king, who remained popular after abdicating in favour of his son in 2004 citing old age and ill health. "I hope to see the royal body," said Mean Pichavisa, 16, as he sat outside the palace cutting up black ribbons for his school friends to pin to their shirts in a symbol of mourning. The teenager, who shaved his head in honour of Sihanouk's passing, said he would spend the day there to witness the late monarch's "historic" homecoming. Earlier today his coffin was transported through the Chinese capital to the airport in a bus decorated with yellow ribbons and flowers, while flags flew at half-mast on Tiananmen Square in his honour