THIS IS SONGKRAN!
the canal: a source for water and dysentary
old men + wet chicks = songkran
playing at the guesthouse
the view from above
April 12 - 16 was Songkran Festival which is Thailand's New Year. Songkran was traditionally a festival about paying respect to elders, monks and buddha. Originally, thais would run water over buddha and their elders as a cleansing to pray and give thanks. but it is far from that now... it has turned into the world's largest water fight. And yes, it's a five day holiday - which was officially extended one day this year by the government. so that meant one more day of water and one less day of school for us.
so on April 11 we all left Bangkok on an overnight bus bound for Chiang Mai, in the northwestern part of Thailand. During Songkran, most of the thais in Bangkok return to the provinces in Thailand to spend time with their family - so Bangkok is pretty much full of foreigners. It was really cool to be in Chiang Mai because, while all we did was throw water around, there was a lot of culture to be observed throughout the weekend... but i'll get to that later. The bus ride was 12 hours of torture. But it just made stepping off the bus in Chiang Mai that much better. We went to our guesthouse for the trip, The Green Tulip, and took naps to recharge for our day. Then the real fun started....
Basically our days in Chiang Mai consisted of:
- wake up
- eat
- throw water
- buy ice
- make water cold
- throw cold water
- buy more ice and repeat
That was repeated for hours and hours, days and days. I think the majority of my baht spent in Chiang Mai was either on ice or water guns. Chiang Mai is basically enclosed by a canal surrounding the city. This was the main source of our water - and now dysentary. Everyday we would walk to the canal then find a tuk-tuk to drive us around for an hour or so. the tuk-tuks were rigged so that they had taken the top of the cart off and had put two big tubs for water on the back. then we would drive around and proceed to drench those thais by any means necessary. but, being white in Chiang Mai, we were like moving targets for them. I think they had a lot of fun throwing water on us and seeing us shiver due to the cold water. It was very cool to see how the entire thai culture came together for this holiday. Young, old, wet, dry - everyone was having fun and throwing water around. But I have to say one of the coolest things of the weekend was witnessing the Thai culture in effect. On Monday, the last day I had to run around and play in the water, they did a parade throughout the city where each temple in Chiang Mai had a float in the parade. Each float consisted of a thai style band playing traditional music, a buddha that people would throw oil on to cleanse, and 10 or so thai ladies. I was fortunate to be standing at the stopping point. So each float would stop and play a song. During the song, the ladies danced in traditional thai style. But the funniest part was - they were all traditionally dressed. Everyone. but... the water didn't stop. So here are these nice thai ladies - all make-upped and dressed to the nines being sprayed with water guns. It was pretty cool how a smile never left their face and they never seemed to get mad. In fact, the whole weekend - I never saw anyone get mad because of water.
well it was definitely THE coolest thing i have done/will do while in Thailand, or southeast asia for that matter.
UPDATE: it's raining cats and (stray) dogs right now. i'm trying to get this post out before my tower loses power - which it's notorious for doing. happened three times last night/this morning. seriously - i can't even see the river or thammasat or even the freeway beneath my room.... crazyyyyyyy
well check back tomorrow. i'm going to post about me on rocks in krabi - gotta leave ya hangin.
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